Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1894-11-23

two ansW er6
Ninety nine out Of hundred explain 1t
by the rapid growth of the country, sud
den and destructive fluctuations in bust
ness, the great influx Of foreigners, and so
on. The other man fatty denies the state
ment and says there are no more popular
decisions now than in any other age when
tho human mind was active.
And history says this hundredth man Ia
eight.
There are fewer rather than more delu
lions in this than In other ages, only they
are of different sort. The Coxey move
ment carried 2, 900 or 8, 900 men to Wash
inaton: the crusades carried as many mil.
lions to Asia and Africa, and with far less
reason. Quack doctors still proclaim Joy
to the worldt Another life saved!" etc,
but look at the long, long list OF past de-
lusions In that line-the elixir of life, tina
fountain of youth, the love charms, phil
ters and p>tions, the infallible cures for
cancer and consumption, the aqum vitae,
thieves vinegar, cundurango and blue
glass cure.
The drowning grasp at straws, and the
hopelessly sick will try anything. Misery
q always credulous So nearly always Is
poverty. If the proof were not absolute,
who could believe that thousands OF
learned men wasted their lives over the
vagaries of alchemy There was the phi
losopher's stone, which was to transmute
all base metals into gold, and those who
believed in it never stopped to think that
II 1t proved a success the abundant gold
would then have no moro value than tho
base metals, or less indeed, for gold even
now has little utility, and then had none
,I~~c CHI at 0u1y f0r0
dads? Do not the "green goods" men of
New York catch sucker every day in the
year,
And then the witchcraft delus1on. It is
proved that in Germany alone In one CEN
tury 10000 wretched beings were put tn
death for this impossible crime. In France
the Judge of the Jura district sentenced
900 persons to death in three years-159S-9
and 16OO-on the charge of lycanthropy
or'wolf manhood" it having been proved
to his satisfaction that by the aid of the
devil these persons became wolves in the
nighttime and ate the peoples pigs, chill
dren and calves. In Scandinavia the bust
ness was tolerated for q long time, and
there were recognized witches who made
a business of selling favorable winds to
sailors. 1t was noted that the wind mar
ket was active In April and dull in Au
gust and midwinter, in which 1t differed
materially from Wall street. 1t was in
1874 and in Aix-la-Chapelle that the
witches set all the people to dancing vio-
lently, and this epidemic soon spread to
other countries. The afflicted called on
all the saints in turn, but each answered
that Kobal, the devil lord Of dancing, out
classed him till they came to St. Vitus
He went into Thaumaturgia and choked
Kobal into semidecenoy, after which the
involuntary dancing ceased. There IL even
now band of dancing fanatics in New
Jersey.
The Christians Of the dark ages adopted
the Persian doctrine, or two seed faith
that there Is god of evil with complete
kingdom in this world, and that some
children are born subjects of the dark pow
er. One of the first books printed and ap-
proved by the ecclesiastics of Germany was
the "Pseudomonarchia Demonum," in
which the Internal court Is particularized
thus: Beelzebub, supreme over all hells
founder Of the Order of the Fly; Satan,
premier and flying messenger; Euronymus
prince of death; Moloch, prince of tears
and blood; Leonard, grand master of
witches and lord Of the Sabbat (witohes'
assembly) Baal, commander in chief of
Internal armies; Kobal, master of sinful
nmusements; Asmodeus, lord Of milling,
and SO on. There were also ambassadors
of Beelzebub In all lands, Belphegor in
France, Mammon In England, etc. The
work contains some very shrewd reasoning
from nature and the Scriptures and closes
with statement that 'aies are never 90
thick in the summer air as are invisible
devils about every man." Even now it
:scares man to read the book.
The Germans have always, for reasons
not easy to give, been flrmer believers in
witchcraft than any other Europeans, and
their laws were still severe on the subject
long after the delusion had been laughed
out Of France. At length came the Napo-
leonio wars, and then this absurd faith
vanished. 1t was long a saying in Ger
many that "Bonaparte killed all the
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