New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-09-26
POPULAR SCARES."

The city has recovered from its apprehen-
siOns Of dire results, the He'll Gate explosion
of Sunday having destroyed nothing which 1T
was not intended to destroy, and rended moth
ing which it was not intended to rend. The
event still furnishes food for talk, more or less
wise, and for a week to come men will con-
tinue to compare their experiences, and Will
be divided into those who went down to see
the sight and those who did not, between
those who felt the vibrations and heard the
detonations, and the exceeding few who ut we
may believe them felt nothing and heard moth
ing for nobody wishes to be out of the fash
ion, or to be thought deafer or less sensitive
than his neighbor. And now, all being wen
over, it is hard TO say definitely what people
were afraid of. Nothing is easier than to prop
agate a general alarm for which there IS no
foundation, as those well know who have
heard cry of "Fire" given in crowded
theater, or seen a carload of travellers thrown
into panic by some snap or crack entirely
insignificant The belief in the general end OF
all terrestrial things, and the final purgaton
of the world, has sometimes got the
better of whole masses of population, and even
in our own day has been noisy and nonsense
cal enough to attract attention. Horace Wal
pole in one of his letters mentions that all
London had been expecting the Day of Judg-
ment. and that many of the inhabitants had
betaken themselves to tho fields for safety.
The Dark Day which once frightened all
Massachusetts will occur to the reader. Go
"home and tell your mother" said witty DIR.
Byles, to a boy who had been sent to
him for his opinion, that L am as
"much in the dark as she is" Nor need
we record how comets, with their por-
tentous tails, have perplexed the nations, nor
how an unusual display of meteors has often
been considered the harbinger of something
dreadfuL The NOotka Sound Indians have q
most decided horror of eclipses, thinking the
sun about to be swallowed by big fish. only
10 be driven away by much pounding of brass
kettles. A single case OF pestilentlal disease
will sometimes destroy the e1uaRlmlty or q
parish or of whole town. For beng
capable of sublime courage, man IS some
times a good deal of coward.
OF course, most of these epidemcs of terror are
to be attributed to sheer Ignorance OF the
forces of Nature, and of her methods of con-
trolling them. We DO not regard an eclipse
as the Nootka Indian does, because we know
more than he does of the sun and even OF
fishes. Gen. Newton did not apprehend gen
eral tremble on Sunday, because lie understood
perfectly what his dynamite would do and
what il could not do. Having taken all posi-
bile precautions against disaster, and thus pro-
tected his scientific reputation against even
the impossible, he proceeded calmly, as scien-
tihc men usually do.
If We were to moralize upon this subject it
should be by pointing out the wisdom of
trusting for safety to those who comprehend,
as we do not, causes aud effects. The answer
to the ranting MieTite was the physical inn
possibility of the cOntlagratiOn which he pre-
dicted. When the Devil appeared to a
naturalist and threatened to eat him, he
pointed TO the hOofs of the apparition, which
showed that it was graminivorous, and could
not eat naturalists Mt all. The physical
disturbances of the earth, the effects of
which are really TO be apprehended, are
few. and, like earthquakes and volcanic
er,lptions, are mostly confined to certain lOcali-
ties. We live in zone free from such per-
turbations, and NAV possess our souls in peace.
If all the comets which have come and gone
have done no mischief at all, there is little
need to fear their return, no matter how long
their tails or how bright their heads. We may
be pretty sure that the world. will last our
time at least. We may be sure, too, that the
danger of any singular and peculiar catastrophe
by land or sea is small The odds are against
it; and upon the safety of the odds let us al
quietly repOse