MUMMIES THAT TAKE REVENGE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 81, 1 May 1909, Page 3

MUMMIES THAT TAKE REVENGE.

Various theories have been put forward to account for the decline of the Crystal Palace in popular favor, but the most curious of them all is that advanced by Golab Shah. the Afghan, who has recently opened an Indian restaurant in Holbom (says a Home paper). He asserts that the building lies under a curse, because the mummies rifled •from the teinple-tombs of Egypt were first brought there and exhibited. "Send all your mummies 'hack to the land of the Pharaohs," h e says in effect, "and Fortune will once more smile on your Palace." QUIET DISAPPEARANCES. The idea savors of the Orient, and of Oriental superstition. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied that ill-luck has frequently dogged the custodians of these somewhat gruesome relics. It is, for instance, a fact that certain of the British Museum mummies have been quietly removed, owing to the pernicious influence their presence exercised upon the attendants and others. One mummied lady in particular caused a mysterious blighting illness to grip hold upon anyone who approached he r too closely. Then ther e is the well-known case of Frana Hcntsch, the famous Geraum Egyptologist, who died suddenly some time back, soon after unroilin» a 'mummy, supposed to be that oi Sebekhotep VI., one of the Hvksos or Shepherd Kings. SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS.

On examination of the wrappings, a cuniform inscription came to light, which, when translated, proved to be a solemn and very comprehensive form of curse upon anyon c interfering in any way With the corpse. Nor does this particular case stand alone.

It is only fair to 6ay, however, that medical science supplies an explanation of these somewhat disquieting phenomena.

These mummies, say the doctors, hnve, ere leaving Egypt, passed through many hands, in a community where plague, cholera, and other dwidly diseases arc always more or less rife. It would be extraordinary, therefore, they point out, if the wrappings did not occasionally carry the germs with them, and these germs would .naturally he disturbed by the unrolling, to the detriment of the "unrulier."