The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-01-11
ICoNOCLAsM.

tertained in the childhood of many now liv-
ing men, was one in the authenticity Of the
pleasant little story about William Tell and
his son. Not a few of us have admired the
child, who, in his brave confidence, stood I'M
finchinsly before the cross-bow OF his father
while the shaft, unerringly sped to the target
resting above his brow. We have sympath-
lied with the father IN his great fear and
hated with the full force of our youthful hate
the sdious Swiss tyrant Gesier. And then
again how implicitly we believed in that
dread prophecy of Mother Shipton. We
couldn't help 1t. Didn't it bear the evidence
of inspiration? Every year or oftener we
met it in print introduced about after this
style: :
"The following which IS known as Mother
Shipton's prophecy was first published in
l4SS and republished in 1G41. 1t will be no.
ticed that all the events predicted in it,, ex-
cept that mentioned in the last two lines,
which is still in 1.-THE future, have already come
to pass"
As many Of our readers probably have for
gotten this remarkable prophecy, we will give
1t as originally uttered:
'Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye.
Water shall yet more wonders do,
Now strange. yet shall be true.
The world upside down shall be,
And gold be found at root of tree.
Through hills man shall ride
And no horse or ass be at his side.
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk.
In the air men snail be seen,
In white, in black, in green.
Iron in the water shall float,
AS easy as a wooden boat.
Gold shall be found and found,
In a land that's not now known.
Fire and water shall wonders 90;
England shall admit a Jew.
The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eigh ty-one.
AS it reads so p~rettily it is a pity that the
iconoclasts have gone to work and destroyed
its authenclty. They have surrounded it with
the same air of uncertainty into which the lit
tie fable about William Tell has been pro-
jected. In fact they have uprooted our be-
litl III uoIl TIE Kiss nero anu NLOtnGr cnlD-
ton. The one, they say is q myth, and the
other existed in the fertile Imagination of a
nineteenth century writer, who after rail-
roads, iron steamships, balloons, telegraphs,
cables and many other inventions and bless
ings had been heaped upon the world through
the ingenuity of man, composed the doggerel
and sent it adr,ft as the prophecy of some
| mythical, ancient lady.
Thus one by one fall the precious little
idols that were years agone erected in our
hearts. 1t is we'll. In this severely practical
age romance and superstition have but small
space in which to grow and thrive. The
William Tells and Mother Symptoms of the
past are now bought and paid for at their
true value. As we are just entering the year
1881, and no signs yet appear that lead us to
believe the final dissolution Of this mundane
sphere is at hand we would, in the language
of another, advise the credulous who treasure
in their memory the doggerel above quoted
to ego right along about your business, get
your boots tapped, bring out your ulster,
keep up your supply of winters wood, treat
your neighbor as You wish to be treated, pay
your printer, be virtuous and you will be
happy"