BURDEN OF SUPERSTITION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2282, 28 May 1921, Page 1

BURDEN OF SUPERSTITION.

Someone has said that all human beings are superstitious at heart, if not outwardly. If this is the ease (and we may almost suspect it to he so, with a feiv possible exceptions), it is one of the instances of poor humanly picking up a burden it was never intended to carry.

Many people (says the Newcastle M eekly Chronicle) are slaves in the toils of the superstition god from morning till night. Follow such a one from sunrise to sunset, and observe with what meticulous care he must work his already overburdened mind and memory with trifles that should be beneath his notice. His right foot must precede his left;

bis stockings, if put on wrong side, may so remain in order that he may

receive a present before night. If by any chance a mirror is cracked or broken while dressing, such a person would be so overcome as to be of tittle use for t lie rest of the day; the same if a picture falls in his bedroom. Our friend must on m* account drop the soap while he is washing; the very sight of a spider early in the day portends sorrow, and to kill it would certainly bring rain. The joyous whistle dies on his lips as he runs downstairs, for lie remembers “Sing before you cat, cry before you sleep." He is careful to prop the poker in front of the grate, though lie may not know the reason, that he is really making the sign of the cross with the top bar. The bread falls in half as lie cuts it, and lie starts, for it denotes a parting from some loved

one, worse still the crust of the bread is ribbed with a cross. Why this should portend misfortune, and the poker cross good fortune, lie could not tell you, nor anyone else, but superstitious practices are certainly not notorious for logic. Perhaps Inter, in a lit of ab-enl-mind-edness. he crosses his knife and fork while eating bacon, or forgets |u smash up his egg-shell, lie will be very sorrowful, and more so if In puls his umbrella or his boots on the table. This last is a most admirable form of superstition, being called in to cheek a nasty, dirty habit; but alas! what can be said

of its preventing our poor friend from cutting his nails because it is Friday? Having overcome his distress til another member of the household toasting broad with a knife (most unlucky), and observing the foretelling of a wedding on

seeing two spoons in one saucer he sets off . He struggles with himself whether lie will return to the house for an important document, but decides it is too unlucky. He sees a piece of coal on the road, and courts Imppines,s and dirty fingers by picking it up. He is delighted to meet both a piebald horse and a black eat, but his vague hopes for the future are dashed the next moment by the sight of a woman with a squint. At lunch time, in a restaurant, lie has to quit his chosen table hurriedly because it is laid for thirteen, and this, though it may be crowded elsewhere. He pours out a glass of water, as the mutton broth is salt, only to remember the old adage, "If you drink water with soup, you will

cough in your grave.’’ And so we might follow our poor friend to the (dose of I be day. when lie mournfully overturns a salt-cel-lar, and views the new moon through glass! Assuredly bis burden is heavy, and grievous to be borne. And we call him “fool,” yet feel vaguely insincere.