The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1874-02-04
cURIosIr1Es or SUPERSTITION,

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Louis Napoleon in his will emphasizes the
solemn declaration "With regard to my
son, let him keep as a talisman the seal
used to wear attached to my watch.n This
piece OF fctichism would appear to have
formed yet another link between the exile
that has passed from our midst and those
Latin races whose cause he affected to repre-
sent, whose superstition he certainly shared.
Indeed, the ancient Romans degraded a
priest because his mitre fell, and unmadc
dictator because rat squeaked. Caesar
! crossed the Rubicon, because on the opposite
bank he saw man with fine figure. His
nephew felt confident of winning the battle
Actium, because he met peasant of the name
of Nicolaus mounted on an ass Wolsey was
warned of his doom by a crosier-head !;
Sejanus, by fight of cows. DIR. johnson
objected to going under ladder. Montague
avoided giving his left foot priority in putting
ON his stockings. Alexander was believed to
have united the Gordian knot with his sword
For good-luck's sake, Augustus wore some
portion of a sea-calf; Charlemagne some
tlinket of unknown value. Mohammed was
all fate; Bonaparte all star and destiny
Cromwell believed in September 3, and Louis
Napoleon in December .. Sulla 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 Curtus, was ter.
rified by blood flowing from inside his
soldiers bread during the siege of Tyre, in
332 b. G.. His seer Atistander, forcsaw in
this crimson effux of the vital stream out of
the commissariat q happy issue for the
Macedonians; an6 the warriors thus nerved
took Tyre. From the year 1904, the alarm
ing spectacle of the bleeding host and bread,
as well as the bewtched bloody milk, several
times in each century, gave simple folk a
scare; thus, it WINS noticed in 1904 under
Urban w., at Bolsena, not far fiom Civita
Vecchia; and Raphael has taken this for tie
subject of his picture called the " Miraculo de
Bolsena,' which is at all events, miracle OF
the pencil In 1883, when Heinrich Won
Bulow destroyed the village and churc, Of
Wilsnach, drops of blood were found eigh
days afterwards on the host placed on tn
altar. But the victims of superstition hav
the bump of casualty remarkably developed
and in 15to, tlsivty-eights lows were burnt /
ashes because they had tortured the consccr
ted host until it bled. Again, the sight VIZ
seen on the Moselle in 1924 and in 1S4S til
famous Ehrenberg analysed Il @ tcrrib,
portcnt. After STOPPING with his microscop
over the red stains ON bread, cheese an
potatoes, this savant declared that they ar
caused by small moiiads or vibrois, whic
have red color, and ars so minute that from
1866, 100000 to 1874, 1856 000, 600, 600 distinc
beings adorn the space of one cubic inch
Unfortunately, when, in 1880, thirty-eigh
lsraelites, as we have seen, were burnt t,
ashes, no scientific Ehrenberg existed to point
out to their superstitions butchers that what
they called a proof of the tonsecrated host
being tortured until it bled, was merely due
to aggregation of hungry red Insects