Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-12-02
OUR sUPERsTITIONs.

I
cans to read, as they may do in a recent
letter to French paper from the United
States, that the people of this country
are among the most supersttious in the
world, exceeding in this respect the
| French, the Germans. and the English.
This statement cannot be proved, for
it is not true that any large number of
our people equal in superstitiousness the
French peasantry, or even the English
yeomanry. And yet it is undeniable
that our sailors are full of superstitions,
and that many of our farmers are the
absolute slaves of fallacies about the in
fuence OF the phases of the moon upon
their crops and upon the weather.
Many women, too, are apt to shud-
der at the breaking of mirror, fearing
bad luck, and whole family of SUPER
stitions has been grouped about the cat.
The idle and foolish fear, in the South
West, that it is ''bad luck" to remove
cat from one house to another with a
moving family, has probably been the
cause of the desertion and cruel death
of more than one unfortunate animal.
Many superstitions, indeed, are wick
ed, and all are foolish.
The belief in the s'unluchiness'' of
Friday is common all over the Christian
world. and retains certain hold in this
country, in spite of the lucky circum-
stances that America was discovered on
Friday, that the Pilgrims landed on Fri
day, and that the Declaration of hide
pendence was adopted on Friday. Th
superstition arises from the belief that
our Saviour was crucitied on Friday.
How unworthy to suppose that the event
which saved mankind should .have
doomed the world to perpetual ill-fort-
une on the day of its occurrence!
If Friday were indeed an unlucly day,
nothing could have been undertaken in
this year, 1886, because the year began
on Friday. will end on Friday, and con-
tains fifty-saree Fridays; four of its
months contain five Fridays each; the
longest and shortest days of the year
are both Fridays, and, more dreadful
still, five changes of the moon fall on
Fridayi
The fear of the number thirteen is not
so common in this country as it is in
Europe. The superstition has Its origin
in the fact that the apostles, with the
Saviour, made thirteen at table. The
superstition in its original form was to
the effect that, if thirteen men were
seated together, one of the number was
sure to prove q traitor or criminal
and be hanged. As executions ceased
to be of common occurrence, the notion
simply that one of the thirteen would
die within year replaced the former
superstition.
The accidental spilling of salt is often
noted by the American housewife as
''unlucky," but rather, it seems, by way
of jest than seriously. This supersti-
ton also goes back to ancient times,
when the exchange of pinch of that
necessary article, salt, was a sign of
friendship, quite naturally, and its re-
fusal token of hostility. The over
throw of dish containing it was held,
therefore, to foreshadoW the end of
friendship.
Superstitions about the moon are very
old and of very varied origin. Men of
science tell us that there is, so far as in
fluence Of the moon upon the weather is
concerned, but one chance for any such
effect; and that is in the possibility that
the very slight amount of heat that the
full moon radiates may have some little
influence in dispelling clouds and rem
dering the atmosphere dryer.
A good story is told of colored man
in the South who, though ignorant, was,
wise enough to get along without squar-
ing all his acts by the state of the moon.
He was a successful gardener. and the
vegetables he produced were always the
earliest and the finest.
do you plant your seeds in the new
of the moon, Gabriel, or in the old of
the moonP" he was asked.
go 'longr' said Gabriel; 81 plants
my seeds in de ground. an lets de moon
take care OBJ hers fr'- Youths Compa1s-