The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-12-04
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

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MOTHER sHIPToN-K. B., Alyarado, Alameda
County, Cal. Mother shipton was a prophecies
who is said to have lived from 1886 to 1861.
She was known in South Wales and at one
time her predic tons, generally in rhyme, were
in everybody's mouth in South Wales, espe-
eially in Glamorganshire. She predicted the
death of Wolsey, Lord Percy and others, and
during the reign of Henry VIII she gained To-
cal fame in Yorkshire for her prophecies. In
1862 there was published by Charles Hindley
of Brighton, Eng, what purported to be an ex-
act reprint of "a Chap Book Version OF Mother
symptoms Prophecies. from the edition of
144S." The most noteworthy prophecy was
the following
Carr. ages without horses shall go,
And accidents shall iii the world With woe,
Around the W Grid thoughts shall hy
In the twinkling of an eye. 80
Waters shall yet more wonders do,
Now strange, yet shall be true
The world upside down shall be,
And gold be found at roofs tree.
Through hills man shall ride
And no horse ass be at his side.
Under water man shall walk,
Shall ride shall sleep, shall talk.
In the air man shall be seen,
In white, in black. in green.
Iron in the water shall float
AS easy a wooden boat.
Gold shall be found mid stone
In a land that's now unknown.
Fire and water shall wonders do.
England shall at last admit Jew.
And this world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.
AS the year announcing the end of the world
drew nigh, this so-called prophecy attrac ted a
great deal of attention, and the world was
anxious to know something about Mother
Shfpton. In 1880 there appeared the follow
ing in a Chicago paper, contributed by cor
respondent:
would like to give your readers an abstract Of
the researches of William Killaway. In the
library of the British Museum there are nineteen
wenty prints or reprinls ranging in size from
duodecimo TO qusrto, giving an account of Ursula
in Knoresborough, near the Dropping Well, and
buried nesr Clifton. over her heau was raised a
eptaph:
Here lies one who never Iy'd,
Whose skill so often has been try'd;
Whose proph ecIes shall still survive,
And keep her name alive
This is said by r. Head, who wrote her life
in 1857, to have been found in an old monas-
terry. Mr.. Head searched the old works, but
failed to find the prophecy there.
Another correspondent to the same paper
wrote as follows:
Mother Shipton was veritable character who
lived more than three hundred years ago and ut
tered number of soc called prophecies. They
were for the most part vague. unmeaning jum-
pIe and were without point or meaning. In Hind
ley's reprint "The Prophecy appeared, and in it
were many modern discoveries and inventions
such as Carriages without horses shall CO." which
has been realized in railroads, and the prophecy
wound up with the lines:
"The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eigh ty-one."
The prophecy was copied into a New York paper
and dec AIRED to be a forg cry An English paper
declared that It was an exact reprint of the OLD
edition for nearly $50 years on file in the British
Museum. The New York paper sent its English
correspondent to look the matter up He found
tions that might have bsen fulfilled at any and
every decade since their date None of the poinl ed
and interesting predictions in the issue were
the old book, and they were evidently written AFTER
the occurrence OF the events they supposed to
predict. In the spring of 1873 Hindley wrote a
letter confessng that he had fabricated the proph-
To oil a
the book saiabie.
One of Mother symptoms prophecies was that
"When the dragon of Bow Church and the
grasshopper OF the Royal Exchange should
meet London streets would be deluged with
blood" In 1920 bot these yanes were living
together in lheyard of q stonemason in Old.
street road, but the prophecy was not fulfilled.
THE TECHE+"W ildwood," CAL There Is no
river Teche, but there is the Bayou Teche, one
of the small tidewater navigable channels
which were once the main channels of large
rivers. This bayou lies Immediately west ri
Grand Lake in the southern part of the State
Of Louisiana, and the Atchafalaya River, and
us huge panKs formed by the oyerfiows GEN.
turtles ago when it was q main river outlet
the bayou is through one of the most fertile
and productive portions of the State II Is
navigable to st. Martinsville, Martin County,
empties into the Lower Atchafalaya near Nor
gan City, in st. Marys County. Above ST. Mar.
tinsvllle the Teche is navigable for very small
boats q portion of the year. What Is now
termed Bayou Teche was once the lower Dor.
ton OF the ancient channel of Red River. *.
tending from the present bayou to point east
OF Opeiousas in st. Landry County around to
the west and south of what is now the great
lake basin-then probably en- inland bay into
which the Mississippi discharged-to. the gull
OF Mexico. st. Martinsville, PattersOnyille
Centerville, Franklin and New Iberia are
prominent towns on the Teche
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The ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CAL II
is generally believed that the Mississippi
Valley and the Atlantic Coast were once in
habited by an agricultural and partially civil
lied race quite different from the nomadic
Indians, though possibly the progenitors oil
some OF the Indian tribes, and that after GEN.
turtles of occupation they disappeared, per-
haps many thousand years before the advent
of Europeans. The theory has been advanced
that these people migrated from Asia. that
they passed over Asia TO Siberia, across Boring
Straits, down the Pacific Coast of America
from Alaska and to the Mississippi Valley
and dvvn to Mexico, Central America and
Peru. The remains of the mound-builders,
as this vanished people are called, are