The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-10-17

emotions by referring to impressions
made upon the mind in childhood by
weird stories related by servants, just
as Southey in his poem, ''Thalaba," says,
"a nurses tale
Which children open-eyed and mouthed
devour;
And thus, as earrulous ignorance
Relates, we learn 1t and believe"
But this does not explain. For chill
dren who have never had this experience
often seem quite as superstitious as those
who have, and grow up with a dread of
darkness and subtle fear Of ghosts and
COLLINS. Charles Lamb was nearer the
facts than Southey, when he wrote, at is
not books or pictures, nor the stories OF
foolish servants, which create these ter
rors in children. They can at most give
them direction. Dear little T. H., who
of all children has been brought up with
the most scrupulous exclusion of every
faint of superstition, who was never al
lowed to hear of COLLINS or apparitions,
or scarcely to be told of bad men or to
hear or to read any distressing story,
finds all of this world Of fear, from
which he has been SO rigidly excluded
alb extra, in his own thick coming fan
cies,' and from his little midnight pillow
this nurse-child of optimism will start
at shapes unborrowed of tradition. But
they were there before. They are tran
scripts. types, and the archetypes arr
within us and are eternal" In other
words we are all superstitious naturally.
We are indebted to folklore and tradi-
lions for many of the evidences of our
heritage of superstition and with strange
fidelity we preserve the limitless cate
CORY Of these evidences. Here are a few
of them: A strange cat stealthily enter
Ing the house, brings good luck or bad,
according to its color. The number 13, !"
ugh! To find spider on ones clothes
is a sure sign of receiving money. To
put garment on wroDg-side out is
sign that something extraordinary will
soon happen. On the morning of the bat
tie of Hastings the Duke of Normandy
put on his coat of mail hind part before;
they told him 1t meant disaster, to which
he replied, ut means that am going to
turn from a duke to q king" which hap
pened The itching of the palm of the
right hand means that you will get
money Happy the bride that the sun
shines on has given untold anxiety to
many a sweet bride upon whose wedding
day rain pitilessly fell The hooting of
an owl near by house means death; but
the death can be averted by silencing the
owl, which is easily done-smply turn a
shoe upside down. One night near my
home in the country the weirdest owl Of
Owldom set up his uncanny screeching in
the dark woods behind the house One
who sat in the gallery went into her
room, turned slipper upside down, and,
would you believe It? that was the end
of the owl. This Is an absolute fact To
throw a shoe after bride Is good luck;
but the reason that so many brides have
come to grief is that the wrong shoe was
thrown. Everybody knows that a chick
ems wish bone can bring all manner of
good luck. Which reminds me: Two lit
tie boys were overheard in converse
ton. The 5-year-old boy asked, Joe,
why can't chickens talk?' To which the
6-year-old one replied, Jaw, they don't
have to. When they wants anything
they list pull their wish bones and they
gifts it,
There is a superstition in some parts of
France that when two marriages take
place in q church at the same time the
bride who departs first from the building
will have q boy for her first child. Some
time ago, after double marriage, both
brides bolted for the door, but they got
into scrap in the aisle, each holding
the other by the hair lest she should be