The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1881-01-22
The Terrible Year ut Hand.
The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one

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1t would be difficult to describe al
the sinister predictions that have, as by
common consent, been concentrated
upon the coming year. The soothsay.
ers, OWNERS, oracle makers, astrologer:
and wizards seem to have combined Il
cast their spell upon it. Superstition:
people of every sort, and some who are
not willing to admit that they are super
stitious, 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 SUM-
it will go to meet host of evil omens.
1t will go cursed by theomancy and
bibliomancy. Aeromancy and meteoro.
nancy will glare at it from comets and
shooting stars. Oneiromancy will in
tercept its path with visions of evil, and
nomancy will shake the ominous, back
ward-reading numerals g 1881" before
it. 1t will be beset with scarcscrow
figures by arithmancy, and with me-
nacing phrases by stichomancy. Yet
there is no reason why persons of good
digestion should not go to sleep on New
Years night confident that, after hav-
ing encountered the average quantity of
storm and sunshine, the one horse ball
that we call the world will bring them
safe through the perils of its five
hundred-million-mile flight round to the
starting point again.
Timid persons first began to look for
ward with some alarm to the year that
is about to open, when, several years
ago, the key to the so-called prophetic
symbolism of the Great Pyramid of
Egypt was made public, backed by the
name and reputation of the British as
tronomer, Piazzi Smyth. Others, using
Mr.. Smyth's observations and measure
ments, have gone much further than he
did in drawing startling differences; but
no one can read his book without perceiv-
ing how powerfully it must affect those
who have the slightest leaning toward
superstition or credulity. Besides, this
record of explorations and experiences
in the heart of Egypts greatest marvel
has all the charm and interest of DIR.
Schliemann descriptions of his dis
coveries in Homer's Troy. Such a
book could not well be neglected by the
world of readers; and by the nature of
the human mind, many of its readers
were sure to be imbued with its omin-
Gus dogmas. So the belief, or at least
the suspicion, spread that the secret
chambers of the Great Pyramid, under
Divine guidance by the most mystical
character in all history, Melchisedek,
King of Salem, foretell, among other
things, that the Christian era will end
in 1881.
Mother Symptoms so-called prophecy
likes upon the same date for the end of
the world. The ominous jingle of her
rhymes has probably done at least as
much to disturb the equanimity of cred
ulOus persons as the more elaborate
Vaccinations of the pyramid interpre-
ters. Moreover, Mother Shipton is
represented as foretelling that in the
latter days England will "accept a
jew" AS England has, with consid-
cradle emphasis and more than once,
accepted the remarkable son of old
Isaac Disraeli for her Prime Minister,
this has been taken as a fulfilment of
the prophecy. So Lord Beaconsfield's
dramatic personality is made principal
figure in the murky cloud of evil proph-
ecy that hangs over 1881.
As if the evil eye of Mother Shipton
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 cir
culated about the country, purporting
to be written by men of science, and
predicting that awful consequences to
mankind would result from all the
great planets reaching their pcrihelia,
or nearest points to the sun. together.
According to these prophets the sinister
effects of the perihelia were to begin
making their appearance Install, 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 swathe as broad
as the continents, until it reached the
Pacific Ocean. The narrow Atlantic
was to be no more than brooklet in
the path of this terrible harvester
Plaques, famines, pestilences, fire.
floods and tornadoes were
to scourge the human race until only
few remained. like Noah and his fami-
~, to repeople the earth with a stur-
der and more God-fearjng race.
So much alarm was caused by this
hocus-pocus of pretended science and
prophecy, that some real men of science
Mr.. Proctor among others were at
the pains to show that so far as these
predictions protested to rest upon
scientific facts they were baseless. The |
great planets will not all be in peri |
helion in 1881, and they will not all be |
in perihelion together at any time. 1t |
is true that several of the chief planets |
will reach their perihelia within few
years, and that it is rare for them to be /
grouped so close together as they will
be at one time next year. 1t is also
true that remarkable condolences have
been observed between the existence of
great storms on the sun, that produce
electrical disturbances and possibly
changes upon the earth.