Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-06-21
PROPHECY" MADE GOOD.
Aviation Fulfills One Prediction Of
the Mother Shipton Hoax.

From the OreEonian.
To those who doubt the wisdom of
Sophocles and still believe in modern
necromancy, recent events in avia-
ton. eliminating in the crossing Of
the Atlantic ocean. will seem to be
another verifcation of the famous
prophecy" of Mother shipton. sup
posed to have been made in the time
OF the Tudors. late in the fifteenth
century. and part of which was:
Carriages without horses shall SO.
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling Of an eye.
Waters shall yet more wonders do.
Now strange. shall yet be true.
Through hills man shall ride.
And no horse be at his side.
Under water men shall walk.
Shall ride. shall sleep. shall talk.
In the air men shall he seen.
In white, in black, in green.
Unfortunately. however for the idol
worshipers. the Mother Shipton
prophecy" was just hoax, to which
Richard Head wrote in 1854 Life
and Death of Mother Shipton." in
which he endeavored to prove the eN-
istence some two centuries previously
of a seeress who, among other things,
had foretold the death of Cardinal
tablishing to the satisfaction of
later investigators that she ever
lived at all. But the wonderful
prophecy in question collapses under
the weight of Hindley's own story.
Hindley reprinted Heads book IN
1862. and garbled it, The prophecy
in question was Hindley's. and nor
Mother SYMPTOMS, and was made in
a spirit of jest He no more laid
claim to supernatural gifts thRn
would H. G.. Wells.
Another of the bogus Mother Ship
ton prophecies menaced a village in
Somerset. England, with destruction
by earthquake and flood in 1879. and
was so widely believed that hundreds
of families abandoned their homes on
the eve of the expected disaster, while
spectators swarmed in from far
around to see the town destroyed
The willingness of some persons TO
be humbugged, notwithstanding eX-
perience. was shown by the fact that.
although the prophecy for 1879 failed
completely. the fraudulent lines SUP
piled by Hindley-
And this world to end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.
caused great alarm throughout Eng.
land and even in other countries In
that year. and resulted in the moving
of many thousands of persons from
their homes into the fields. The
tendency of the credulous to sever
all home ties on the supposed APP
proach of the crack of doom has never
been satisfactorily explained by the
psychologists.
Flying has fulfilled the last of the
so-called prophecies of the famous.
but probably non-existent, old witch.
except those to which reference has
been made. Forecasting the death o.
Wolsey, If, indeed, ii was done at all
ought not to have been difficult IN
the troublous time in which Wolsey
lived. Some of the other prophecies.
already had come to pass when Hind
ley wrote his forgery of Heads book
Aeronautics had reached a primitive
stage of development half a century
before Hindley wrote, and no fewer
than fourteen submarines had been
patented in England prior to 172r
Hindley was not even man or
imagination. He was merely a prac-
teal joker who fooled more credulous
people than any other man in his
century.