The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1881-01-07
An Ominous Year.

We consider ourselves part Of an ege that
If 1t is not altogether freed from supersti-
tion, is fast shaking off the sbackl,s, with.
out, we hol e, any detriment to lofty relig
ious belief and we look back with wonder
and contempt at tn ,se creatures whose
minds we're of the order that made them
dupes of Cornelius Agripps, of Nostrads-
mus, of Cagliostro, and Of the whole horde
of men wise in the dark art. Yet in spite
OF our belongings and our contempt, and be-
cause this is the year 1881, the majority Of
newspapers published in the English lam
guage have felt that their readers had a
right to see some portion of Mother Ship
tons prophecy, aud have given it to them
generously
Indeed so many various scraps of this
precious document have been printed at one
time and another that if one should put
them together IL would take almost as many
years as Mother Shipton lived in order to
read them and we cannot help thinking
that ingenious penny-a-liners have supplied
versicles to the good dame to help her odt,
discreet knowledge that four hundred years
aud over are likely to render anything of a
legendary character more or less corrupt and
and incorrect anyway.
1t is a curious document, this old lady's
prophecy. But since one of the features
failed to fulfill itself in the year 1920 she
having declared, it is said, that Lond on
streets should be deuged in blood when the
dragon of Bow Church and the grasshopper
of the Royal Exchange should meet, which
event happened, without the expected re.
suit, at a time when both of these vanes Icy
| together in a stone-mason's yard awaiting
repairs-since that time people have not ex-
pected so much of Mother Shipton as they
once did.
"Nround the world thoughts shall fly
| In the twinkle OF an eye;
Water shall yet more wonders do,
Now strange, It shall be true"
runs one OF the quatrains in copy that may
| be as dou uotful as all the rest, prophesying
after the fact.
Through the hills man shall ride.
| And no hor e nor ass be at his side
| Under waters men shall walk
Shall ride, shall Sleep shall talk"
runs another and although she skips the
telephone aud the phonograph and the pho
tophone, she winds up with something hav-
ing rather a special interest to our own
generation:
| Fire and water shall wonders do,
England shall admit jew,
And the world TO an end shall come
In eighteen hundred an eghty-one."
There is many simple soul sitting by
country firesdes these winter nights, reared
in grew.ome faith which puts Heaven
chiefly in the attitude of the angry and out
ragged avenger to whom those lines have
had vague terror of posi- bility. They
are people who were taught in childhood to
expect the end of the world, to whom then
a peculiarly bright moonligh spread the
earth with ghasty corpse-color that fore
boded nothing else, to whom an easteily
storm seemed something that not improba-
bly, might have no close, aud IN whose quak-
ing nightmare dreams a day of judgment
was a prominent factor. They would per
haps be ashamed to tell you, but ever since
they heard of Mother Shipton's name they
have secretely felt that they should be q
little glad when 1881 was over and done
with,
Nothing to them does the word of science
signify, no notion comes into their heads as
universe simply to destroy it before bring
ing it to completion they are only blindy
Concerned in their own fate in such con
tiugency, and they are watching the wea'
ther signs this year as they never did before
Woe betide them if this winter brighter
aurora whit.ns the north than usual, OF
sends up more crimson banners and fiery
lances to the zenith Woe betide them if {
cold spell come, where long stay of the mer
curry below zero suggests the horrible mega
lion of death Woe betide them if the spring
rains are copious ough to fill the brook
aud make freshets in the rivers with visions
of another deluge Woe betide them j
August or November gives them such star
=, shower as was known in 1888 From al
these things dreadful potents arise, anc
they will not really know tranquil securit.
again till the old year has been rung out anc
1882 rung in.
1t is true that some of these old prophe
cies are very remarkable, and, if tradition
may be trusted, have often been singu arl,
verified and why not Mother Shipton's
: 1t is true that nobody knows what nigh
, happen if some stray comet should com
along, with force of its own equal to tn
undoing of the creative purposes, and sent
our planet spinning away from the sun. |
is true that, according to our present knowl
2 edge, it seems as if the material world mYs
come TO an end some time when the SUI
ceases to give light and heat-why not thi
year as well as that year? We can not pre-
tend to answer the conundrum, but we cal
at least give the good advice comprised il
the oyster saloons sign Nunqudm non para
tbs. And we might ever feel warranted by
the gravity Of the situation by declaring tha
i behooves all those that regard the year a
doubtful and Ominous to put themselves o.
their best behavior, that they may, at an
rate, all the more suitably enjoy the surpri.
, in store for them when they wake and fin
the whole world jogging along in the daw
of 1882.
See woman on horseback in al
other column, riding near Speer's VineyarC