Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1873-11-13
CuriOsities of Superstition,

Louis Napoleon in his will empha-
sizes the solemn declaration: "With
regard to my son, let him keep as q
taIisman the seal used to wear at
tached to my watch" This piece of
fetichism would appear to have formed
yet another link between the imperial
exile that has passed from our midst
and those Latin Races whose cause he
affected to represent, whose supersti-
ton he certainly shared. Indeed, the
ancient Romans degraded a priest be-
cause his inter fell. and unmade die
tator because a rat squeaked. Caesar
crossed the RubicOn, because, on the
opposite bank, he saw d man with q
fine figure. His nephew felt confident
of winning the battle of Actium, be-
cause he met peasant by the name of
Nicolaus mounted on an ass. Wolsey
was warned of his doom by a crosier-
head; Sejanus, by flight of crows. DIR.
johnson objected to going under lad
der. Montague avoided giving his
left foot priority in putting on his
stockings. Alexander was believed to
have united the Gordian knot with a
slice of his sword. For good luck 8
sake, Augustus. wore some portion of a
sea calf; Charlemagne some trinket of
unknown value. Mohammed WAS all
fate; Bonaparte all star and destiny.
Cromwell believed in September Sd,
and Louis Napoleon in December 2.
Sulla called himself Felix, tho favored
child of fortune, and Timole1n turned
his house into temple of chance.
Alexander, if we may credit the ac-
count given by Quintus Curtius,
was terrified by blood flowing from in
side his soldiers blood during the siege
OF Tyre in 332 B. C. His seer, Aris-
I, .nder, foresaw in this crimson effiux
of the vital stream out of the commits
sariat happy issue for the Macedoni-
ans: ard the warriors thus never took
Tyre. From the year 1904, the alarm
ing spectacle of the bleeding host and
bread as we'll as the bewitched bloody
milk, several times in each century,
gave simple folk a scare; thus it was
noticed in 1854, under Urban w., at
Bolsena, not far from CivitO Vecchia;
and Raphael has taken this for the sub
jpct of his picture called the "Miraculo
de Bolsena," which is, at all events a
miracle of the pencil. In 1883, when
Heinrich Won BulOw destroyed the
village and church of Wilsnach, drops
Of blood were found eight days after
ward on the host placed on the altar.
But the victims of superstition have
tie hump Of casualty remarkably de-
veloped and in 1410. thirty-eight Jews
were hnrnt to ashes because they had
tortured the consAcrated host until it
hled. Aoain. the sight was seen on
the Mosnlle in 1923; and in 1S4S the IA
nous Ehrenherg analyZed terrible por-
tent. After stopping with his micro
scope over the red stains on bread,
cheese. and potatoes, this savant de.
clared that they are caused by small
monads or vibrois, which have a red
! color. and are 90 minute that from
As. CSC. .OO0. ono to SS4, ,736, 900, 600, 600 dis
finrt beings adorn the space OF one
cuhic inch. Unfortunately, when, in
1910, thirty-eight Israelites, as we have
seen, were burnt to ashes, no scientific
Ehrenberg existed to point out to their
superstitious butchers that what they
called proof of the consecrated hos'
being tortured until it bled, was mere
" due to aggregation of hungry rec
insects han6ers' Journal.