THE HAND OF GLORY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4352, 2 March 1875, Page 3

THE HAND OF GLORY.

(From the Melbourne Leader, January 30.) In the Aye of the 25th inst. appeared the following ghastly paragraph : “ The death of a miserly old woman at North Fitzroy, who was known by the name of Connor, was recently reported in our columns. After her death her premises were searched, and a man’s hand was found beneath the hearthstone. This gave rise to several rumors, and it was stated that a human body had been discovered. A savings bank hook was discovered, and this shows that the real name of the woman was Foran, and not Connor. It has transpired that she arrived in the colony from Tasmania in 1870, and it is supposed that she superstitiously kept the hand, which was well preserved, as a charm.” There were not wanting persons to assert, with that morbid love of the horrible which, distinguishes some minds, that the fragment was a portion of the carcase of some murdered victim ; and that in the hovel occupied by Mrs. Conuor when alive would he found more thrilling evidence of the method by which she had acquired a few hundred pounds of which she died possessed. The sensible sergeant of police who searched the house was, however, of a different opinion. The woman was of the lower order of Irish, and had early in life been a resident of a penal settlement. Persons subject to such influences of locality and birth are not uu- , frequently eminently superstitious. The sergeant stilled popular terror by announcing his belief that the mummified fragment was nothing more than a charm —a charm hidden in the house, in order that “ luck" might be attracted thither. A charm the Hand was undoubtedly, but it was a charm of more terrible import than the good sergeant imagined. Unless I am strangely mistaken, the old woman had been the owner of that hideous and celebrated thieves’ talisman, the-, Hand of Glory ! Amid the many coarse and monstrous superstitions which; made hideous the twilight hours of England one hundred years ago, the Hand of Glory held easy prominence. Magic had been laughed out of society. Dr, See and his cannel coal, Robert Fludd (or Robertas de Fluctibus, as he called himself), the chief of English Rosiorucians, together with their followers and friends, had to become an open mock and scorn. Even the marvellous Cagliostro, the owner of the Elixir Vit:e and the Grand Arcanum, was riskifig his immortal neck in climbing out of a Lincoln’s Inn garret to avoid an unbelieving landlady. The age of alchemy, sympathetic powder, and witches’ sabbaths was past; the age of mesmerism, spirit-rapping, and the Seer of Poughskeepie had not quite come in. . The interval was well occupied by such charnel - house imaginings as this of the Hand'of Glory. The Hand of Glory is a candlestick made of a murderer’s hand, holding in its fingers a candle made of the fat of a felon. So long as this; terrible candle burnt, so long did. the sleepers, sleeping in the-room where it was burning, '.continue; to' slumber, despite their efforts to awake. The robber holding i this, torch in his hand was safe from interruption I But the manufacture of this candle, you say ? Ah,; that is the peint, and I am fortunate enough to be able to furnish you with the exact recipe. The particulars of the composition [of this charm are not to be found in any of the larger works on magic. The Disquisitiones Magicae of Martin del Rio does not contain it; neither Cornelius Agrippa, nor _ Trismegistus say anything about it, the L’enchidriou Leonis Papse ignores it; and even that great work, that grammar of sorcery, that book without which no neoromancer’s library is complete—Le Grand Grimoire—which expounds the art of commanding, celestial, aerial, terrestrial,' and infernal spirits, does not'mention it; No, the recipe is given by le Petit Albert only! Who is ie Petit Albert ? Well, le Petit Albert is not so much a man as a book.; About 1262 there was, at Ratisbon, a bishop, a native of Swabia, known as' Albertus Magnus. This gentleman, who was; a profound philosopher and a brilliant scholar, was credited by the superstitious—and in 1262 there were few people who were not, superstitious—with the practice of magical l arts. It was said that he could raise the dead, and that he owned a metal figure which answered his questionings. After his death these stories were freelyretailed, andby-and-: by his name became so famous that men who really did practise magic found themselves sure of an audience if they said that they possessed some of the secrets of the great Albertus. His works, with many of 'these interpolated magical secrets, were printed at Ly6ns in 16 51, in twenty-one huge folio volumes, and from that time smaller and smaller editions appeared, until at last the chapmen and hawkers, who carried round their wares to the farmhouses, became ashamed of their Great Albert, and christened him Little Albert for shame’s sake. The editor of the works of Little Albert has introduced among his extraordinary instructions for seeking buried treasure, for raising homed demons, and for calling up female devils, the celebrated recipe for the Hand of Glory. This is what he says “ De la main de ytoire dont sc servent les sederats voleurs pour entrer dans les maisons de nuit sans empechement." Of the Hand of Glory, which aids murderous thieves to enter houses at night-time unhindered. “I admit,” says our author, “ that X have never myself made trial of the secret of the Hand of Glory, but I have three times assisted at the final judging of certain villains who, under the torture, confessed that they had made use of the Hand of Glory in the robberies which they had committed. When they were asked in the course of the inquiry what the Hand of Glory was, how they made it, and what was the use of it, they replied, first, that the use of it was to stupefy and render motionless, as though dead, all those to whom they presented it; second, that it was the hand of a condemned criminal-; and thirdly, that they prepared it in the following manner,” Then follows a description, which is as purely horrible as anything recorded in that nightmare of a book, the Malleus Malleficarum \A-“ They take the right hand of the corpse of a man who has been : hung or beheaded as a criminal, buying it if they can from the executioner or keeper of the place where the body is placed after execution. They .wrap it in a rag of the dead man B shroud and put it in an earthen jar with zimat, saltpetre, salt and pepper, all well bruised-together. They leave it for five days in this jar, then, taking it out, they expose it to the full rays of the sun until it has become quite dry ; if the sun’s heat does not suffice, they set it over a chafing-dish. Then' they compose a candle with the fat of the doomed

malefactor, with wax and the sesame-grass of Lapland, and make the Hand of Glory a candlestick to hold this candle.” It is satisfactory to know, however, that the charm is powerless if the doors and entrance ways of the house have been annotated with an unguent composed of the gall of a black cat, the grease of a white fowl, and the blood of an owl.

It would he curious to discover how Mrs. Connor obtained the talisman, and whether she ever employed it. There were plenty of criminals in Van Diemen’s Land in her day, and not a few gibbets either. Doubtless, if the owner of the member could speak, he would tell us some queer tales. One is tempted to wonder if a shadowy form with one arm thrust into its coat pocket, never lurked in the gloaming outside Mrs. Connor’s door, waiting to demand “My Hand !” But it is not good to muse on such matters.