The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-05
SURVIYALS OF FETCH
LITTLE sUPERSTITIONs HELD BY
 SOME GREAT PEOPLE.
MacauIay Always Trod in the Middle of a Paving Stone-Max MuIi-
 CT Carried Ha'penny With Hole In It.

PalI Mall Gazette.
 Among the portents of the great about to fortune tellers. cunning men. and astrologers" Sadly he reports that this trade grew so open and so generally practiced that 1t became set up at the doors, Here Lives the Fortune Teller and the like" This
 was 250 years ago. in an ignorant age;
 enlightenment has marched so Tar 'tellers, clairvoyants. ''and the like" crowd the fashionable streets with their advertisements. And nobody
 worth attention thinks 1t a portent Al guests proclaim their belief in pal
 mistry--itl isHs classed among the nciences. Learned persons investigate fionrishing society of astrologers holds debates and issues literature. So great has been the progress of knowi- edge and culture since Defoe's time. Does any one quite escape the snares of superstition? Not all are gross and palpable. There Is null edly superstitious. to some of which | most of us are devoted. One need nor l turn back so far as Bacon or Newton
 to find examples among the wisest and erned by pure reason than Lord Ma | caulay could not well be found But | in his diary he refers to an after-din-
 ner talk about the feeling which Is,3
 bound to touch a particular rail or
 post and to tread in the middle of | paving stone. And he adds: II cer-
 tainly have this very strongly suGn | fled, like consulting disreputable
 woman as an oracle. but Is 1t less un-
 reasonable?
 l Tn Hihhert lectures
 Max Muller said to the students:
 Many of you. l suspect; carry
 ha penny with a hole in It for luck.
 am not ashamed to own that l have
 done so myself or many years. The
 case was cited as an illustration of l 'survivals" from primeval fetichfsm;
 but on his own account Max Muller
 confessed that when. sometimes he
 had left home without this ha'penny | taiIsman, he felt very uncomfortable"
 until his safe return:
 l Charles Dickens refused Q lie down unless his bed were placed due north
 and south. He gave notice or the
 rule before arriving at friends
 house or a hotel. but compass was
 always handy in his baggage to make
 sure, and the slightest error must be
 corrected before he would turn In.
 Little scenes are said to have occur
 Ted m0Ts stnShorn dnan Miss Justin | has told how Parnell gravely checked her stirring coffee the wrong way.
 and insisted that she should take an-
 other cup. A gentleman of Portrush sent Lord Roberts an old horseshoe.
 when things looked i'll in South Africa. Gratefully acknowledging 1t. the gen horse shoe in company with one l | picked up the day entered the Or ange Free State. and another I found at Paardeburg the day before Gen. Cronje surrendered.
 When Macaulay. and Max Muller confess such weakness we are not only permitted but compelled to sup pose that few mortals are exempt Of those who would laugh, in all sincerity, at the charge of supersti- tion. a vast number are scrupulous to perform certain daily exercises in the right way" as MT. Parnell stirred way approved in the beginning of things by Pithecanthropus erectus. moved by impulses which laboriously seek to analyze at the present day; but they hold us in subiection still. What proportion of English men and women are careful to put shoes ana stockings on the right foot first, and like Max Muller. if by chance they reverse the proceedings We happen to know. that this fancy is as old as corded that Augustus once put on his left shoe first, and thereby caused a mutiny of the Pretorians.
 Charm In Mandrake Root.
  Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff was mot a little surprised to learn. some time ago that a public man occupying one of the highest nonroyal positions in Europe attributes much of the sue session of a mandrake root" It shows the gentleman,ssa moqsst}y' . eredita6ie shocked to discover that "a woman of good family. educated. the wife of leg of her child, just bitten by a dog"
 If the mother had faith she was spar ed a terrible anxiety, and If the boy
 shared her confidence the amulet may
 well have saved her life, After all. In any case it did no mischief. It Is stated on the best authority that deputation of farmers from Northum- berland waited on Sir Thomas Lock- hart in 1888 to beg gallon of water in which his famous Lee Penny" had
 been dipped, wherewith to dose their sick cattle; from date unknown such superstitions have been addressed to the representatives of the Eockhart family One Is almost sorry to hear