Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1874-04-09
Curiosities of Superstition.

| Out tiUoIlI6o VI OupCi otitiUu.
Louis Napoleon in his will emphas-
ICES the solemn declaration "With
regard to my son, let him keep as a
talisman the seal I used to wear at
tached to my watched" This piece
of feticism would appear to have form
ed yet another link between the i'm
perial exile that has passed from our
midst, and those Latin races whose
cause he affected to represent, whose
superstition he certainly shared. In
deed. the ancient Romans, degraded a
priest because his mitre fell, and I'M
made dictator because q rat squeak
ed. Caesar crossed the Rubicon, be-
cause on the opposite bank, he saw a
man with n fine figure. His nephew
felt confident of winning the battle of
Antitum, because he met peasant by
the name of Nicolaus mounted on an
ass. Wolsey was warned Of his doom
by crozier-head; Sejanus, by flight
of crows. DR.. Johnson objected to
going under ladder. Montaigne
avoided giving his left foot priority in
putting on his stockings. Alexander
was believed to have united the Cor
dian knot with,,a slice ofhis sword. For
good luck's sake Augustus wore some
portion of a sea calf; Charlemange,
some trinket of unknown value. Mo-
hammed was all fate ; Bonaparte, all
star and destiny. Cromwell believed
in September 3, and Louis Napoleon
in December 2. Sulla called himself
Felix, the favored child of fortune, and
Timoleon turned his house into a
temple of chance. Alexander, if we
may credit the account given by Quin-
tus Curtius, was terrified by blood
flowing inside his soldiers bread dur :
ing the siege of Tyre in 1872 B. c.
His seer, Aristrander, foresaw in this
efflux of the vital stream out Of the
commisserlat happy issue for the
Macedonians and the warriors thus
never took Tyre. From the year 1904
the alarming spectacle of the bleeding
host and bread as we'll as the bewitch-
ed bloody milk, several times in each
century, gave simple folks scare ;
thus it was noticed in 1864, under
Urban w., at Bolsena, not far from
Civitia Vechia and Raphael has
taken this for the subject of his pic
ture,, ''Miraculco de Bolsena," which
is at all events miracle Of the pencil.
In 1888, when Heinrich Won Bulow
destroyed the village and church OF
Winach, drops Of blood were found
eight days afterwards on the host
placed on the altar. But the victims
of superstition have the bump of
casualty remarkably developed, and,
in l41O, 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 1S4S the famous Ehren-
berg analyzed the terrible portent.-
After STOPPING with his microscope
over the red stains on bread, cheese,
and potatoes, this savant declared that
they were caused by small monads or
vibrois, which have red color, and
are so minute that from 46,656,OOO,-
600 to sS4,736,OOO, 100000 distinct
beings adorn the space of one cubic
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 a proof Of the consecrated host
being tortured until it bled, was merely
due to aggregation of hungry red in
sects.-Mamber's Journal.