The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-07
MME DE THEBES'S DIREFUL PROPHECIES
 COME TRUE ONLY BY RARE EXCEPTIONS
Making Much of Certain Lucky Guesses the Past the Paran Still FOretels the Woes to Come, While French NOtabes Still Consult This Aforetme Driner to Their
 Aforetime Emperor.

this year and next and all the rest of times man-made cycles
 ''The year Is to see distress in Eng land" wrote the Madame last Jan uary. Well. that government faces today It's distressing unemployed problem, so put down a credit mark for the Parisienne.
 news from Russia, in spite of the end ing of her war" This. too, has come to pass,--but the odds were at least even as to the wars end. and the ad- iective sad" has applied to Russian news so long as to discount any claim of preternatural foresight in using it.
 The congratulations which may be said to have been partly correct ad- vised a trembling world ID of A. nancial disturbances in Paris and (2J of revolutions in Belgium and Aus tria. The little kingdom of Leopold has seldom passed a more prosperous. more peaceful twelve-month. but Aus tria has had more than her share O. political ferment,-albeit not q revolu- tion. One may still. however, give the prophecies the benefit of the doubt and overlook the mere word = As to financial trouble in the French capi- tai; was there not 8 panic In sugar stocks, with three or four resulting suicides? Of course. Right again partly!
 Bernhardt "ForgOt" to Die.
 Between April and June" Sarah Barnhardt was scheduled to die; a. least that is the only construction which her followers put to .he Thebes gloomy outlook for that celebrated actress-daughter of France, whose voice of gold has charmed nation after nation" This certainly was not "tha Divine Sara" as we now see 1t. nor did any other even slightly prominent French daughter" make he final exit from the stage. Mme de Thebes was not quite right on tha; count.
 Death. indeed, was not obedIent to her forebodings. T see the most i'm portant personages of the nation" she wrote of England, "plunging that land into a deep grief. I see flags at hal! mast. and the cities draped in black This is characteristically vague, but il could have meant nothing but deatd Of King Edward,-and at iast report he was still in excellent health an spirits. And if one monarch's passing was not to be enough. January saw the foretelling of the sudden ends oi Wilhelm II and Franz Joseph, Com ment on these expressions of the "is- | to-cOme" is unnecessary.
 IT these guesSeS Tell Wlde or the mark of 'actuality, so, too, did these: "A great happiness for France l proph- esy. It concerns Alsace and Lorraine, and Affairs in the Eternal City are to occupy the entire attention of that world which likes to call itself civil ized," and most vivid account of an earthquake, the scene of it unquestion- ably laid in New York city. France seems as far off as ever from recover- Ha from '71; Rome has seldom been less in the public eye; and the nearest any earth quake got to New York was diminu- tive tremor which knocked some colo
 nial crockery off the shelves of tho Maine housekeepers last July. Some Facts Overlooked.
 The de Thebes following might claim her accuracy in this last item, In that | the world really was visited by two great earthquakes during the year just passed,-but Italy is pretty nearly a
 hemisphere away from the American