The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-02-23
FOLKLORE AND CRIME.
Strange Superstitions That rnfiu-
ence Criminals.
Ghastly implements Employed by Thieves
In Their Nefarious 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
mystic code which regulates the lives
of these enemies of society is in many
cases survival of fetichism of the old
est kind. Believing tenaciously in the
dread efficacy of certain ghastly 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 it's 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 a con-
temporary account of the affair, "they
entered the house armed with dead
mans hand, with a lighted candle in 1t,
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 public house
with a 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 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 full account of this
charm as used by French housebreakers,
and variation of the same belief pre-
vailed in Belgiune Not far from Bail
leui, in West Flanders, thief was cap
tured on whom was found the foot of a
man who had been h 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 a
woman who died at the BIRTH Of her
first. child. Il
Then there is the corpse-candle, q
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 80 long ago, it may be remem-
bered, four peasants in the south Rus
sian government Of Kursk murdered q
girl in order to make candles of her
body, the notion being that such o
hideous light not only renders the per-
petrators of robberies invisible, but
actually throws the victim or victims
into state of somnolence. In the Ger
man criminal codes of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries we find ex-
press mention made of penalties against
a crime the motive of which was the
making of "thieves'" or ''sleep-produc-
ing candles" This superstition has fig
ured in many trial, and seems to be,
even to the present day, implicitly
believed in by the criminal classes. In
deed, it was suggested that the White
chapel murders were instigated by this
idea--a theory which the celebrated DIR.
Bloch, a member of the Austrian reichs-
rath, was induced to support. An in
stance of this piece of criminal lore
occurred during the trial of the German
thief, Theodore Unger, who was exc
cuted at Magdeburg in 1910, when 1t
was brought out in evidence that a
regular traffic existed for the supply of
these grewsome implements of the bur-
glars trade. But, instead of making
the criminal invisible, this grim light
has more than once done the reverse,
and caused him to be brought to justice.
WHITE WINGS NO MORE.