CHAIN LETTERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 464, 22 July 1909, Page 3

CHAIN LETTERS.

The latest development of the chain letter habit in Auckland has taken the form of an attempt to frighten young children. Sheets of manuscript, headed “endless prayer chain,” have been in circulation and girls of a tender age seem to have been singled out by the addresse, who, of course is anonymous. The sheet is headed with a short prayer, quite harmless in itself and to it is appended a statement that this “prayer was sent by Bishop——recommending it to be sent to nine persons,” each of whom in turn is desired to send it to nine other persons, and so on, and infinitum. If the matter were permitted to end at this there would be nothing to take particular exception to, and a silly and apparently meaningless joke might be left to take care of itself. The evil, however, is in the tail of the letter, which has given alarm to a number of youthful recipients. This sets forth that she who attends to the request to re-write the prayer and despatch it to nine others will “be delivered from every calamity,” and “receive some great joy” ; but, on the other hand, that “she who will not send it will be affected by misfortune,” and that “one person who paid no attention met with an accident.” A writer in the New Zealand Herald expresses an opinion that if the person who is disseminating this sort of literature met with the misfortune to be caught and ducked in a horse pond the earnest* prayer of a number would be abundantly answered.