Jinx cartoons--XX---query

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>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?

I believe it may be the "double cross". Besides its usual sense (betrayal),
"double cross" apparently was used like "Indian sign" or "hoodoo"
occasionally. E.g.:

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_Daily Northwestern_ (Oshkosh WI), 31 Oct. 1903: p. 12(?):

<<Then, too, the Pittsburgs could not hit the ball. During the National
season they batted out of the box men as clever as Billy Dineen, yet the
Bostonians put the double cross on them so effectually that the tribe of
Dreyfuss looked like a bunch of schoolboys.>>

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-- Doug Wilson