The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1889-02-02

nations any tradesman having sever
sons together without the interven.
ton of daughter is declared free o.
all public burdens and taxes and has
other encouragements bestowed on
him to enable him to bring up the
said children for the use and benefit
OF the commonwealth, and McGie
claims similar consideration. The
magistrates ordered that his petition
should be considered.
Even in Spain and Portugal this
old belief is not unknown. The
peasantry believe that if woman
delivered of seven male infants sue
cessively, the seventh, by a strange
fatality, becomes subject to the pow
ers OF darkness and is compelled on
every Saturday evening to assume
the likeness of an ass. So changed
and followed by horrid train of
dogs, he is forced to run an impious
race over the moors and through the
villages, nor is he allowed rest until
the dawn OF Sunday morning, when
he resumes his own shape.
A writer in the Dublin University
Magazine, when it was edited by
Sheridan LeFanu, the novelist, who
too great interest in the occult, has
the following: at is not generally
known that a particular ceremony
must be observed at the moment of
the infants birth in order to give him
healing power. The woman who
receives him in her arms places in
his tiny hand whatever substances
she decides he shall rub with in after
life, and she is very careful not to
let him touch anything until this
shall have been accomplished. II
silver is to be the charm she has
provided sixpenny or three penny
bit, but, as the coinage of the realm
may possibly change in his lifetime
and thus render his cure valueless,
she has more likely placed meal or
salt upon the table, within reach.
Sometimes it is determined that he
is to rub with his own hair, and in
this case the father is summoned and
requested to kneel down before his
newborn son, whose little fingers
are guided to his head and helped to
close upon lock of hair. Whatever
substance a seventh son rubs with
must be worn by his parents as long
as they live"
The whole of this superstition, or
whatever we may choose to call it,
is one of those ideas so strangely
attached to the number 7, which
from the NEST ancient times was
considered to have efficacy and sig.
nificance in religious actions. The
fact was considered impressive that
the moon changes in seven days.
There are seven stars in the Pleiades
and Great Bear. seyen tones in music
and, according to the old idea, seven
planets, seven senses, seven metals,
etc. In the service of the Catholic
Church there are seven periods:
mathis, prime, tierce, sext, nones,
vespers and compline, and there are
the seven penitential psalms, seven
deadly sins, seven sacraments and
seven works of mercy. Indeed, a
whole column might be filled with
list of subjects with which this num-
Der is connected. And, apropos of
the seven penitential psalms, it is said
that the repetition of them at night
if you are wakeful, will infallibly COM
pose you to sleep, sometimes after
the first three or four verses. If your
horse does not sleep, or is troubled
with nightmare, to which those ami
mails are peculiarly subject, hang in
a string flint with hole in it around
the neck of the beast.
Seven consists OF three-the num-
Der of the sides OF a triangle-and
four, the sides of a square, these
being the simplest rectilinear figures.
The world was created in seven days.
Seven was called by the ancient phil
osophers the Virgin, unbegotten and
unbegetting-that is, not to be OBJ
tanned by multiplication.
Here is something curious in con-
nection with Hawkins, who was
hanged on Tuesday. 1t is from the
World:
ut is a strange fact that young
Hawkins should have been marked
out from his birth for the fate which
has overtaken him. The nurse who
attended the mother OF Hawkins at
her confinement was a superstitious
woman and great believer in signs
and omens.
"When the condemned man lay
in her lap twenty three years ago,
wrapped in soft flannel, she found on
the right cheek of the babe birth
mark in the shape OF brown, mole
like patch. The nurse arose in dis
may and said to those about her:
That is a murderer's mark. This
baby, if he lives, will make trouble
for his family and friends" Her
words were repeated to Mrs. Haw-
kins and were often remembered in
the Hawkins family circle. "-RutAel
in Sunday Meas.