The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1895-09-07
AMERICAN SUGGESTIONS.
Our Folklore Has Some Interesting One
in Spite of Its Infancy.


Naturally, and yet worthy of remark
in passing, the tales of Kentucky deal
almost exclusively with horses, special
or otherwise. The residents of Jessa-
nine county conduct the visitor to a
bit of woodland i~ntersected by a much
travelled road, about which he dis
covers no remarkable features until
informed that no horse, how
ever old or decrepit, unless
blind or hoodwinked, W. passes
through hat remnant of forest
without running away with driver or
rider. The mystery has long ago been
given up as unsolvable, but the fact
remains; and it is quite curious to see
sturdy old farmers alight and blind
fold their horses at the edge of this
haunted timber.
There is also a great swamp in the
eastern part of the state which is the
residence of an immense put fleet
footed phantom stallion, which seen
in daylight is c~oal-black, but encOunt-
cred on the highway at night is white
as the proverbiai driven snow.
The most remarkable story emanat-
ing from the regenerated dark and
bloody ground is that which relates
that a race, in the vicinity of LeXing-
ton, was once run by a ghostly horse
and jockey. There were twelve entries
and starters, but as the horses were
going down the back stretch the
judges and the spectators in the stand
counted thirteen contestants, the odd
horse being a black, three-year-old
FLY, ridden by a diminutive negro,
which forged rapidly to the front and
came in first at the finish, nlysteriously
disappearing among the horses as they
were pulled up in the turn.
The highways seem to have become
favorite resorts for the eastern shore
ghosts. We have many times heard
the story of the invisible horse
man, who dasheS along the road at a
mad gallop, and who makes his pres
ence known by a shout and the beat of
the hoofs of his horse. Occasionally
riding out in state, he drives a team,
and then the rafting of wheels and
the crack of whip are accomplishments
of his passage. The whites regard
this phantom simply as an eccentric
freak of the spirits, the negroes profess
to see in it 4 more particular and omin-
Gus significance. In one locality-this
was on the banks of the Susquehan-
ma river-our attention was directed
to a roadside quarry, and were re-
quested to notice on the face of the
rock at the back of the excavation the
outline of a huge door. Having as
scented to the fact that certain cracks
and streaks upon the surface of the
rock did present something of this ap-
p%earance, we were seriously informed
that this was the door behind which
the invisible horseman stabbed his
phantom steeds. and that at a certain
hour Of the night, moved by unseen
hands, it swung open for his exit.
Other specters of the highway are
THE Blacksmith" "a name which'has no
appropriateness further than hat it is
used to describe a ghost with a heavy
hammer, "Loblollv William" whose
supernatural p~retensions are based On
the fact that when encountered upon
a hard and dusty road his footsteps are
those of one walking through soft
mud; Miss Phoebe" who has appeared
only once since the war, and whose
present existence is, therefore, some
what problematical; and &c these the
negroes. who have no individual names
for particular ghosts. add the terrific
specter which they call 1.-THE man with
the iron face;
Owing to the loss Of hundreds Of
oyster sloops in the great bay, a num-
Der of oyster superstitiOns have sprung
up. Chief of them is that of the
''oyster lights" which appear on the
surface of the water and proceed from
lanterns in the masts of phantom
ships. They are said to be observed
in the hour preceding n storm.
In the same class we must place the
black schooner which sails up and
down the Chesapeake, making signals
of distress but which, when
approached by a boat, sinks
swiftly and silently beneath the
waves. An old steamboatman on the
bay informed us that this Inflated yes
sci always flies the English flag, the
inference being hat she belonged to
the British fleet which assembled the
Chesapeake during the war Of 1872,
and which, after meeting with a stout
resistance, captured and burned the
town Of Havre de Grace. at the head
of the bay. 1t seems, however, that
the same schooner occasionally APP
pears on the ocean side of the penin-
sula, where she flies a black flag,
the residents of the beach believ-
ing that the phantom craft was orig
inally one of those under the COM
mand of the pirate Blackboard, and
that her ghostly crew is engaged in a
repeated but fruitless attempt to re-
gain possession of the gold which this
famous marauder is supposed to have
buried in the vicinity of Green Run
beach. 1t is said that the schooner
when seen is always headed directly
in toward the land. and that when she
reachers the outer line of breakers her
bow plunges beneath the waves and
she disappears.-D. b. Fitzgerald, in
Frank Leslie's Monthly.
Absorption of Jews.
That there are plenty of Jews slip
ping away from Judaism in this coun-
try is an indubitable fact, but it is no
more the case now than at 4 hundred