The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-01-13
The Prophets and the New Year.

or less success i'll the pages of "Old
Moore's Almanac" seems to have
descended upon crowd of lesser
seers. First, there is the gentleman
who has taken the place which Mr..
Morrison vacated. This seer, like
majority of his rivals. prophesies no
good of the new year. The world is
to be troubled with storms and wars
and rumors of war, with conspiracies,
rebellions and assassinations. Crown
ed heads are all to fall low, political
upheavels are to take place, and ter
rible tempests are to cause great DIES
truction of life and property, includ
ing serious damage to crops. Next
on the list comes the confident Cana
dian prophet, who predicts that dur
ing the earlier months of 1883 we are
to experience succession of atmos-
pheric commissions so frightful that
they will exceed anything remem-
bered by the oldest inhabitant. Then
there is Mr.. James NJ. Swormstedt,
of Cincinnati, who tells US that in the
course of the present year we shall all
be ruined by the results of a financial
panic, and that those who survive
will experience the teIrors of a COM
munistic war, and of an unexampled
whirlwind, the particulars of which
were described two thousand years
ago by the prophet Joel. We do not,
however, place much faith in Mr.
Swormstedt's predictions, for he goes
on to talk in an eccentric way of the
appearance ofseven great comets, and
he betrays his ingenious. patriotism
by affirming that the millennium
will begin in the United States forty
years earlier than elsewhere. He also
says that those who wish to avoid the
coming troubles may do so by going
to Egypt and camping out pnder the
shadow of the Pyramid Of Cheops-
an assertion which looks as lift might
have been prompted by some unc0n-
scientious emisSary of one of the great
tourist agencies.
Mr.. Swormstedt lifted up his voice
on December 10, and the fact that
Cincinnati possessed so bold a seer
naturally awoke the rivalry of New
York, The result was that five days
later Mr.. William II. Drake, of the
Empire City, also joined the ranks of
the prophets. Mr.. Drake claims to
be a psychometer, and to have re-
ceived numerous impressions and
warnings from spirit guides, who
have very considerably informed
him that daring 1883 not only this
country, but every other, will feel the
horrors ofwar, famine and pestilence,
earthquakes, floods and terrible con-
vulsions Of nature. They have also
told him Of the near approach of the
millennium. A second and more ven
turesome New York prophet took up
his parable on Christmas Day. This
year, according to this seer, the West
ern States of the Union will secede
from those of the East, and will elect
their own President. There will be
a brief but ineffective campaighn,
and peace having been reestablished,
the country will be further troubled
by the disaffection of the Southern,
and of some of the New England
States. which will finally unite into
a confederation, under the supreme
direction of a sovereign with limited
constitutional powers. Other proph-
cts predict the occurrence of social
revolution and the establishment of
a republic in England. the assump-
tion by Mr.. Gambetta of imperial
sway in France, the assassination of
the Gar, a mutiny of the native
troops in India, and the death of the
Emperor William.
In fact, there is scarcely an evil
which one seer or another does not
say will afflict our unhappy planet
in 1883. We can best reassure our
selves by the reflections that during
the last thousand years or so prophets
have not, upon the whole, been very
successful, and that the prophets of the
present day are not likely to be much
more clear.sighted than their prede-
cessors. OF Michael Nostradamus's
half million predictions, less than
half dozen were ever fulfilled and
of the numerous prophecies ascribed
to Mother Shipton, all those which to
a modern reader seem to have any rea-
son in them were, it is now well
known, forged only few years ago
by an impudent scoundrel named
Hindley. Nineteenth-century proph-
cts differ by a good deal from the
oracles, both sacred and profane. of
older times. Our seers are now, as a
rule, either weak minded or knaYish
and the wise man will do well in
these degenerate days to disregard all
predictions save those of the Signal