Jinx cartoons--XX---query

[Barbara Need]

>In a message dated Mon, 11 Apr 2005 20:29:56 -0500,  "Cohen, Gerald  Leonard"
>_gcohen at UMR.EDU_ (mailto:gcohen at UMR.EDU)   writes:
>
>>Does a sign of XX have any signficance for jinx/bad luck?  Barry Popik once
>sent me some
>>1911 cartoons all titled "Lookout for the Jinx" (NY Evening Journal,  e.g.
>May 26, 1911), in
>>which a jinx-like figure always has a double-X on his chest. Might  someone
>know what its
>  >significance is?
>
>Just a guess:
>
>Back in elementary school someone (I think a Catholic boy somewhat older
>than me) told me that while crossing one pair of fingers was a
>good-luck  symbol, crossing two (or more) pairs of fingers meant bad
>luck.  I've never  heard this from anyone else, but then I've never
>seen anyone desperate for luck  cross more than one pair of fingers.
>Would crossing two pair of fingers be  a "double-cross"?
>
>       - James A. Landau

Well, I have personally crossed multiple fingers for extra good luck
(first and second fingers of both hands, third and fourth fingers of
both hands--usually I have had to force this crossing--and, for
especially good luck, the thumbs crossed) and I am sure I have seen
people giving a crossed-first-and-second-fingers-on-both-hands
gesture, for good luck.

Barbara