St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-09-23
KENTUCKY sUPERsTITIONs.

Superstition is not wholly ignorance,
If it has its main root in it. Men who
have passed beyond the period when
SpriteS and ghosts were believed in as
actual eXistences; men who no longer
nail horseshoes over the doors of their
houses or barns; even men who have
grown to look on death not as the most
horrible event of life. and shudder at
the thought of it and tremble in its
presence, and who flatter themselves
that they have freed themselves from
the superstitions of their youth, find
themselves accounting for events as the
result of good or bad luck, and permit
their actions to be controlled by motives
springing from the SuperStitlous.
The impressions of youth are endur-
ing. and abide with US long after we
have learned their falsity. The Santa
Claus of the child. who is to come in
some unaccountable n down the
chimney with his impossible bundle of
toys, becomes in later years to the man
whose illusion vas long ago dispelled.
his luck which is to bring about a solu-
ton of some dilemma in some semi
iiiiaCulOuo way uuiOioGCu " oiy C1Olb
of his own. He reflects that it is Friday
when he starts OH a journey, although
he knows it makes no difference, and
that the suggestion is only a survival of
an early superstition. He has an I'M
easy twinge if he sees that there are
thirteen at the table. though he knows
it is but an involuntary resurrection of
a discarded belief.
While everywhere there remain these
remnants of days when the unknown
vas larger in area than now and when
it was peopled by the creations Of the
Imagination, they cling more tena-
ciously in the South, where the negro
hugs the superstltions of his race with
a religious veneratiOn, and into whose
intellect the light OF reason and knOwl-
edge has penetrated but a little way.
With negro nurses pouring into the
minds of the white children their be-
liefs in supernatural agencies, account
ing for everything they cannot under
stand by them. it is unavoidable that
there one will find among intelligent
men, if not a belief in the grOsser SUI
perstitions of the negroes, at least an
implicit belief that there are sume oc-
cult influences which may be enlisted in
ones behalf. Nowhere is the mascot
so popular or so potential. Charms are
worn to fend off disaster, and the rab-
bits foot is potent to bring good and to
prevent bad luck.
So if we smile at it. we can UNDER
stand why the Arkansas gentleman sent
young Breckenridge and the latter car
ried a rabbits foot mounted in gold. to
bring good fortune in his fathers cam
paign. And the charm gained greater
power from the fact that it was taken
from q rabbit that was killed at mid
night in a graveyard by a croSs-eyed
man. and the poll books were duly
rubbed with the charm the morning of
the primary. Ii another supporter of
the colonel carried a raccoon's foot in
his pocket during the campaign, or an
other trusted his bets to the efficacy of
the middle toe of an elephant. or an
other wore a ''hoodoO" ring on the little
finger of his left hand. or if still another
always spit over the right little finger
of his hand when he met a political OPP
ponent, we may feel a comm!seration
for them. but we can find in it instances
of the enduring powers of the impress
sions received in childhood.