Jinks Hoodoo again (1893)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Here is Jinks Hoodoo (Esq.), the fictional character in the musical
comedy "Little Puck", whose name is apparently the ancestor of the word
"jinx". In this piece from 1893, the name is apparently used to denote a
notional carrier of bad luck -- very much as either "jinx" or "hoodoo"
would be used 20 years later. Note that "hoodoo" in this sense was
already in use in 1893 but the later-synonymous "jinx" was not (AFAIK,
and I've looked some).

 From GenealogyBank:

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_Omaha [NE] Morning World Herald_, 2 March 1893: p. 2:

<<AMUSEMENTS. / Jinks Hoodoo, esq., turned up at Boyd's last night and
for a time ran things to suit himself. First of all Mr. Emil Fischer
failed to materialize. "A severe cold," now "diplomatic colds," are
proverbial, and I confess I have my suspicions of these "concert colds,"
which are cyclonic in the rapidity of their approach. Then the lights
went out. / Not a glimmer was there and it seemed as though Herrmann had
come back to sandwich his dark seance between Mr. Luckstone's fine piano
solo and Miss Engel's song. / A row of gas jets stretched along the
stage gave the place the appearance of a circus tent, and great was the
joy when Mr. Luckstone, who is well named, for all through he was the
corrective of the Hoodoo, announced that in a few minutes our position
would be no longer that of Moses under similar circumstances. / ....>>

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"Little Puck" was current and popular in 1893, but this piece is about
an apparently unrelated mixed musical concert. I don't know who Herrmann
was -- likely a stage spiritualist of the time.

The "Little Puck" cast list often showed "Jinks Hoodoo, esq." (why
"Esq." I don't know [the character was not to my knowledge a lawyer]),
sometimes followed by ", a curse to everybody[, including himself]".

-- Doug Wilson

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