San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1881-01-20
The Terrible Year at Hand.
New York SUM-
The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.
Mother Shipton's Prophecy.

The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.
Mother Shipton's Prophecy.
It would be difficult TO describe
the sinister predictions that have rs
by common consent, been concentra.
ted upon the coming year. The
sooth sayers, oracle-makers, astrolo'
gers and wizards seem to have COM
bined to cast their spell upon it.
Superstitious people of every sort
and some who are not willing to ad-
nit that that they e>superstitious.
regard the year 1881 with more or
less anxious expectation and dread. As
the earth on New Years day, swings
out into another round about the sun,
it will 60 to meet host ofevil omens.
1t will go cursed by theomancy and
bibliomancy. Acromancy andmeteoro-
nancy will glare at it from comets
and shooting stars. Oneiromancy
will intercept its path with visions
of evil, and nomancy will shake the
ominous back reading numerals,
1881, before it. 1t will be beset
with scarecrow figures by arithmacy,
and with menacing phrases by sticho-
nancy. Yet there was no reason
why persons of good digestion should
not 90 to sleep on New Years night
that after having encounter
ed the average quantity of storm
and sunshine, the one-horse ball that
we call the world will bring them
safe through the perils of it's five
hundred-,nillion fight around to the
starting point again.
Timid persons first began to look
forward with some alarm to the year
that was about to open, when, several
years ago, the key to the so-caIled
prophetic symbolism OF the Great
Pyramid of Egypt was made public,
backed by the name and reputation OF
the great British Astronomer, Piazzl
Smyth. Others, using Mr.. Smyths
and measurements, have
gone much further than he did in
drawing startling inferences; but no
one can read his book without per-
ceiving how powerfully it must affect
those who have the slightest leaning
toward superstition or credulity. Be
sides, this record of explorations
and experiences in the heart OF
Egypt's greatest marvel has all the
charm and interest of DIR. Schile'
mann's descriptions of his discoveries
in Homer's Troy. Such book
could not well be neglected. by the
world of readers; and by the nature
of the human mind many of its read
ers were sure to be imbued with its
ominous dogmas. So the belief or
at least the suspicion, that the secret
chambers of the Great Pyramid, un-
der Divine guidance by the most
mystical character in all history, Mel
chisedek King of Salem, foretel
among other things, that the Christian
era will end in 1881.
Mother Symptoms so-called prophe-
cy fixes upon the same date for the
end of the world. The ominous jim
gle of her rhymes has probably done
at least as much to disturb the equa-
nimity of credulous persons as the
more elaborate vaccinations OF the
pyramid interpreters. Moreover
Mother Shipton is represented as
foretelling that in the lat,
ter days England will "accept Jew.
As England has, and with considera'
BILE emphasis, and more than once,
accepted the remarkable son of old
Isaac Disraeli for her Prime Minister,
this has been taken as q fulfillment
CT the prophecy. SO Lord Beacons-
fields dramatic personality is made a
principal figure in the murky cloud
that hangs over 1881.
As if the evil eye of Mother Ship
ton and the mystical menace OF the
Great Pyramid were not enough for
one poor twelvemonth to bear, the
.'horrors of the perihelia' have
been denounced upon the coming
year. About two years ago certain
pamphlets were circulated about the
country, purporting to be written by
men of science, and predicting that
awful conseouencest to mankind would
result from all the planets reaching
their perihelia, or nearest point to the
sun, together. According to these
prophets the sinister effects OF the
perihelia were to begin making Their
appearance this fall, when Jupiter
passed his perihelion, and next year
the scythe of death was to be put to
the harvest in the far east and to
sweep westward with swain as
broad as the continents, until 1t
reached the Pacific Ocean. The mar
row Atlantic was to be no more than
n brooklet in the path Of this terrible
harvester. Plaques, famines- pestl-
lences, fire, earthquakes. foods and
tornadoes were to scourge the human
race until only a few remained. Ike
Noah and his family, to re-peOple the
earth with a sturdier and more God
fearing race.
So much alarm was caused by this
hocuspocus of pretended science and
prophecy that some real men OF
science-Mr. Proctor among others-
were at the pains to show that 50 far
as these predictions professed TO rest
upon scientific flcts they were base
less The great p'anets VII not all
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