END OF THE WORLD

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2097, 4 June 1907, Page 1

END OF THE WORLD

PROPHETS STILL BUSY

With unfailing regularity, the end of the world is predicted by pessimistic people, Just at present they are again very busy. Professor Mattenci, the distinguished scientist and earthquake authority, stated that towards the end of March, of this year a new comet, which has been only recently discovered, would come into contact with the atmosphere of the earth, the only result of which was. to cause a somewhat alarming diversion in Melbourne, An American is also prophesying events that are calculated to make all previous disasters in that country of “mighty things” pale into insignificance. He says that a mountain will rise under Chicago, toppling its Skyscrapers over like so many toyhouses ; that Boston will he submerged, and ships will sail over it; and that New York will he engoilphed in a great chasm under the Hudson River.

Madame do Thee, another prophetess, predicts that the Atlantic coastline will sink and enguipli New \'ork. And she even 'hints at a tidal wave which will sweep both ways, to Europe and America. All this is to happen between now and the last Sunday in 190 S. During the hist nine hundred years prophets have been, with religious regularity, predicting the end of tlie world. Sometimes they have been taken earnestly, and serious panics have resulted. The most famous of all panics which have arisen from fear of the end of the world was- in the year 1000, when there was an almost universal belief that the earth would bo consumed by fire, But on that occasion nothing happened. The founder of a religious sect in .the south of England some years back alarmed his followers one ITri-

day night by tolling them that the following Sunday at 11 o’clock would see tho destruction of the earth. • Ono man, ho said, would bo saved, and he would be taken up in a elmriot of fire. On that morning the small chapel was filled by a congregation of awe-stricken men and women. As the clock struck the hour, sounds of fire were heard inside the building. Women fainted and screamed. The “prophot” ignominiously left his pulpit and hurried outside. It wus afterwards discovered that some boys had concealed themselves underneath the seats, and at the first stroke of tho clock lot off a number of. penny “squibs.*’ Whether these predictions will end as tamely remains to be seen. One comfort is that if Professor Mattenci’s prediction should come true, the final catastrophe will he so swift that we shall know nothing about it in this life.