The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-02-28
FOLKLORE AND CRIME.
Strange Superstitions That Irhu-
ence Criminals.
CHASTITY Implements Employed by Thieves
In Their Nefsrious Business-The
Dead Mans Hand and the
Corpse-Candle.

One of the most curious and strange
phases of superstition is that which re-
lates to the criminal classes. The
aystic code which regulates the lives
of these enemies OF society is in many
cases a survival OF fetichism Of the old
est kind. Believing tenaciously in the
dread efficacy of certain CHASTITY charms
and incantations, the malefactor bold
ly enters on his enterprise occasionally
carrying with him "a dead mans
hand"-taken from one who had died
a violent death. Such charm being
supposed to overpower with sleep those
who come under its influence, it is nat
urally an invaluable adjunct to the I'm
plements employed by thieves, says the
Pail Mall Budget
Some years ago an attempted robbery
was made by burglars on an estate IN
the county Meath, and, to quote con-
temporary account of the affair, they
entered the house armed with dead
mans hand, with a lighted candle in it,
believing that candle so placed will
not be seen BY any but those by whom
it is used, and also that if candle in a
dead mans hand be introduced in a
house it will prevent those who may be
asleep from awakening. The inmates
however, were alarmed; the robbers
fed, leaving the dead mans hand be-
hind them
Many similar stories are told of the
use of the dead hand by thieves, one
communicated by Rev. s. Barring Gould
being worthy of notice. Two men, hav-
ing come to lodge in a public house
with view to robbing it, asked per-
mission to pass the night by the fire,
and obtained it. When the house was
quiet, the servant girl, suspecting mis-
chief, crept downstairs and looked
through the keyhole. when she saw the
men open a sack and take out dry,
withered hand. They anointed the
fingers with some unguent, and lighted
them. Each finger famed except the
thumb, which indicated that one OF the
household was not asleep.
Grose gives a full account Of this
charm as used by French hhousebreakers,
and variation of the same belief pre-
vailed in Belgium. Not far from Bail
leui, in West Flanders, thief was cap
tured on whom was found the foot of
man who had been hanged, which he
used, when engaged in his robberies, for
putting persons to sleep. Similar in
stances are quoted from Spain and Ger
many, and it is noteworthy that Mex
lean thieves have been known to carry
with them the left hand and arm of
woman who died at the birth CT her
first child
Then there is the corpse-candle, a
weird implement of the robbers trade,
which, although common throughout |
Europe, seems to have been more gen
eral in Germany than any other 'coun-
try. Not SO long ago, it may be remem-
bered, four peasants in the south Rus !
sian government of KurslS murdered a .
girl in order to make candles of her |
body, the notion being that such |
hideous light not only renders the per-
petrators of robberies invisible, but |
throws the victim or victims
INTO a state of somnolence. In the Ger
man criminal codes Of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries we find ex-
press mention made of penalties against
/ crime the motive of which was the
making of thieves" or "sleep-produc-
ng candles" This superstition has fig
lred in many trial, and seems to be,
wen to the present day, implicitly
believed in by the criminal classes. In
Iced, it was suggested that the White
,hapcl murders were instigated by this
dea-a theory which the celebrated Dr..
Bloch, a member of the Austrian reichs-
'ath, was induced to support. An IN
tance of this piece Of criminal lore
during the trial of the German
hief, Theodore Unger, who was exc
:uted at Magdeburg in 1910, when it
vas brought out in evidence that
egular traffic existed for the supply of
hese grewsome implements of the bur
liars trade. But, instead of making
he criminal invisible, this grim light
las more than once done the reverse,
nd caused him to be brought to justice