Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-12-17
New Charlatan Appears in
Local Field With the Fore
cast That Some of Us May
Suffer abrupt Removal"
While the Planets Play Hob
in the Heavens
NEW WOE is ADDED FOR
CITY'S SUPERSTITIOUS

The world will end before the
days tnd, says Professor Porta, as
tronomer in a Michigan school.
Theaters, schools and postoffices
will burn January 5, says Frank T.
Allen, Washington astroloSer.
This promises to be very lively
and interesting day" says the as
trologer, who writes a horoscope"
! every evening for "a Harrisburg pa
, per.
There's the three prophecies, all
guaranteed to be as good as prophe-
cies ever are and each man is privi-
tie as he please3.
The expert who plays on the
| feelings of the credulous through the
medium of the local newspaper
agrees with the others that the plan
cts are in position to-day as to be
mischievous. There is possibility
of an important and abrupt reno
val" says this charlatan.
Well Press ACCENTED
The ominous position of the plan
cts had been well press agented, and
some astrologers and persons Verscd
! in witchcraft had maintained that
at the precise moment when the ma
! jor leaguers of the solar system
! formed themselves in straight line
with Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars
! Venus and Mercury on one side OF
] the sun and Uranus on the other, the
| earth which had moved four OF
/, five solar PAGES to the front of the
! line, would behave like the one
horse shay.
- 4
| but the superstitious ones recalled
having lighted three cigarets with
one match, or having walked un-
! der a ladder or having done in re-
cent historic times one of the thou
and and one other things known far
and wide as omens of evil days.
| Old Time Thence
J Students in Porto Rico are report
J ed to have been so unfaVorably inn
! pressed with their chances for con-
I tinuing life yesterday &hlt they
asked for holiday to prepare foi
worst. Harold Jacoby. professor ot
astronomy at Columbia, intimated
! that their actions might have beer
| due to the desire of youth every.
where TO have holiday. He anG
! many other scientists maintained
| that the effect upon the earth of the
planetary alignment would be nil
| Astrologers have predicted the
/ end of the world on somewhat simi.
, lar occasions for centuries. AS early
as 1886 the world escaped one oI
! theri threatened cataciysms. Disap.
! pointment at the escape did not pre-.
vent Stofiier from PREDICTING a uni.
versal deluge for the year 1524-G
year which, as it turned out, was dis
| tinguished for drought.
! Mother Shipton, witch" of Tudor
| times, was credited with beinl
equally sure that 400 years after hel
time - in 1881. to be exact - the
world would come to ain end. The
: prediction caused much agitation il
England when the date she set ar
rived. Thousands of persons de
serted their homes and went out int
the fields to await annihilation.
| Various religious cults have mad,
a specially in more recent years O.
| specifying an hour as the earth,
| last, setting forth scriptural OF
| pseudo-scientilic arguments in sup
| port of their contentious.
Professor Albert L. Porta, q me
! teorologist, is given credit for frs
! thinking up to-day's catastrophe.