St. Paul daily globe., 1889-01-13

back to its allegiance some Grant heart.
The male sex. when driven to entire
despair by some heart-Whole, tloutlng
she, did not Scruple to use the charm or
the philter as a last resort; but the
gentler sex were the aStrOlOgerS better
customers. Perhaps because men are
naturally more given to vanity and
more confident of the power OF their
unaided chalVS; perhaps because imme-
moral custom has decreed that the
woman must wait to be wooed and for
bids that she Should put forth her
powers of persuaion and eloquence.
At all events, women are to this day the
chief users of charms and secret devices
for comprising their ends III matters of
the heart. Here is love charm which
is declared to be absolutely infallible
and was recommended and manufact-
ured for years and in great numbers by
very old New Orleans negresS, who
was Noudou priestesS and who was
said to be more than a hundred years
old. She was native African and
never learned to speak English very
distinctly. She lived by telling
fortunes, the sale of herbs and Voudou
charms and this love charm, which had
Il very high reputation for efficiency,
not only among her own people, but
among the Creoles as well. Itwas made
by catching a small tree toad, one of the
sort who make night resonant in those
warm regions, and which are not very
much larger than the first Joint of a
mans thumb, provided the man be a
big one, but with voice out of all pro-
portion to their size. Their backs are a
smooth, delicate green in color, without
SpeckleS. and on the under side they
are pure, silvery white. These little.
noisy reptiles are very shy and difficult
to catch, and it was always mystery how
this antique darky managed to secure
them, as they generally prefer to sing
from the upper branches of the largest
trees. She did get them. however, and
compassed their demise by the kindly
barbaric device of driving q large pin
through their heads. She then looked
for an ant-hIl-and in Louisiana the
fOrmicae are numerous and voraciouS-
near which she buried her wretched
little victim, whose bones were imme-
diately picked and polished to snowy
whiteness by the ants. In the course of
Il day or two the remains were diSin-
tered and went through certain Vou-
dou rmularieS-mySteriOuS African
WOrdS-and were passed Though fire
upon which salt was sprinkled. The
charm was then ready for use, and the
purchaser having paid $3.50, all i'll silver
half dollars, for this treasure, was then
required to wear it about her
neck for seven nights in success
sion. She was then to lie in wait
for the insenate wretch who had failed
to properly appreciate her attractions,
and, unobserved, hook the little skele-
ton to the gentIeman's coat by its sharp,
white claws. He probably crushed It
or dropped it very shortly after, but if
it remained only very few minutes,
five or six at the most, the charm was
sure to work, so great were its mysteri
Gus powers. The ancient African man
aged to dispose of some forty or fifty of
these charms every year, and she was
wont solemnly to assert that out of sew
eral hundred cases IN which the charm
was used butSeven had failed entirely.
and in those cases because the charm
had been applied sin the dark OF the