The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-11-28
CUKIOsIrIES OF SUPERsTIrIUN.


Louis Nepoleon in his viii EN-
phaslzes the solemn declaration
with regard TO my son, let hin
keep as a Lalismen the seal / used
TO wear attached 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 SUI
perstition he certainly shared.
Indeed, the ancient Romans de-
graded priest because his mitre
fell, and unmade q dictator because
a rat squeaked. Cesar crossed
the Rubicon, because on the OPP
posite bank he saw a man with q
fine figure. His nephew felt con-
fdent Of winning the battle of
Actinm because he met q peasant
of the name of Nicholas mounted
on an ass. Wolsey was warned of
his doom by crosier-head; Sc
janus by a fight of crows. DR..
johnson, objected to going under
a ladder. Montaigne avoided Civ
ing his left foot priority in putting
on his stockings. For good luck's
sake, Augustus wore some portion
of a sea calf; Charlemagne some
trinkOt of unknown value. Mo-
manned was all fate; Bonapate all
star and destiny. Cromwell be-
lieved in Sept. 3, and Louis Nepo-
leon in Dec. 2. sSulla called him
self Felix. the favored child of
fortune, and TimOleon turned his
house into temple of chance.
Alexander, if we may credit the
account given by Quintus CurtiRs,
was terrified by blood flowing from
inside his soldiers bread during
the siege of Tyre in 1872 B. C.. His
seer, Aristander, foresaw in this
crimson efflux of the vital stream
out of the commissariat a happy
issue for the Macedonians; and
the warriors thus nerved took Tyre.
From the year 1904, the alarming
spectacle of the bleeding host and
bread, as well as the bewitched
bloody milk, several times in each
century, gave simple folk scare.
Thus, it was noticed in 1864, I'M
der Urban ", at Bolsena, not far
from Civita Vecchia; and Raphael
has taken this for the subject of
his picture called the "Miraculo
de Bolsena," which is, at all
events, a miracle of the pencil.
In 1883, when Heinrich Won Bu-
low destroyed the village and
church of Wilsnach, drops of
blood were found eight days after
ward on the host placed on the
alter. But the victims of super
stition have the bump of causality
remarkably developed; and in |
1910, thirty-eight Jews were burnt
to ashes because they had tortured
the consecrated host until it bled. |
Again, the sight was seen on the
Moselle in 1924; and in 184S the
famous Ehrenberg anylizcd the
terrible portent. After STOPPING
with his microscope over the red |
stains on bread, cheese and pota-
toes, this savant declared that |
they are caused by small monads |
or vibrois, which have red color,
and are so minute that from 49,
656,OOO,OOO to S84,736,O0O,O0O, 900
distinct beings adorn the space of
one cubit inch. Unfortunately, |
when, in 1910, thirty-eight Israel
ties, as we have seen, were burnt |
to ashes, no scientific Gutenberg
existed to point out to their su
perstitious butchers that what
they called a proof of the conse-
Grated host being tortured until it
bled was merely due to aggrega-
ton of hungry red insects
Chambers Journal.