The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-04-29
Pety superstitions.

We are a little surprised by the let 1 ters and the comments which our ex- pression of a rather contemptuous toll
 erance for the superstition about boast ing, published fortnight ago, has
 brought upon us. We gather from them
 that great many cultivated people they should entertain them is natural, for 1t Is hard to shake off nursery les sons, and hard too not to believe what often seems to be the teaching of expe- rience; but why people should prefer to
 be superstitious we do not understand.
 They do, however. Some evidently dis
 like trusting their reason wholly be-
 cause that way. as they think, agnosti-
 cism may lie; some feel in their super
 stitious beliefs an antiquarian charm,
 or relation to their forbears; while oth-
 CTS appear to have the feeling that if
 they cleared the superstitious wholly
 out, their mental scenery would be rem
 dered bare and marred by sameness-
 one reason, at least, why the old and
 the secluded are often so fond of nov
 els.
 They do not all put the question, but
 all, we think, are inclined to ask us, as
 one rather clever old lady has done,
 what harm the petty superstitions can
 do. Why not throw salt over your
 shoulder if you spill it? We have no antecedent prejudice against supersti- tions; indeed, we rather welcome any
 thing that proves that the masses have convictions not based upon the sordid facts of their lives; but still we deem superstitions Chat is, fancies which af- feet conduct, but for which there is no evidence) to be injurious things, and in a week in which an Irish woman has been slowly roasted to death because she was, in her relatives belief, "be- Witched," it may be worth while to ex- plain why. So far as they are believed, they are needless and embarrassing fet- ters upon human action This fact is rarely felt by the English cultivated, because their superstitions are usually unimportant, if not signifying much whether you are for moment alarmed because you have broken a mirror; but among a great portion of mankind, in- SldblllS eb oCStlOll OL Oul OWn DtJOGs lllG smaller superstitions make up a real and heavy burden. They keep up a permanent distrust in the goodness of Providence, and a watchfulness to avoid evils from unknown forces which is most enfeebling.
 A French or Italian peasant will do nothing which is opposed to certain apothegms registered in his mind as dogmas, and an Asiatic peasant is bound hand and foot by a whole sys- tenn of beliefs in omens, which cramp his energies as much as ever the Rab- binical views of the law as to anise and 3umin and the like cramped, in the time of our Lord, the energies of the Jews MT. Zangwill declares in that wonder sul book of his, The Children of the Thetto,' that his fellow-tribesmen are still bound in these withes, and tells at east one story of pure superstition, hat which prevents Hannah" from marrying her lover, which is heart l breaking in it's pathos. There is not an Asiatic in the world who would dare to | 70 dead against the warnings of his and very few Europeans of l he Continent who will stride forward | esolutely on an undertaking the be- l cinning of which has been marked by | tumble or a failure. Even in England |