FORTUNE TELLING.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2521, 3 February 1877, Page 4

FORTUNE TELLING.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All.but the page'prescribed—their present state— ... "Orwlio bouid'suffef being here below.? So sang Pope, as all our- readers" ar'eV aware. Everyone, if the question--were-put to him, would acknowledgethat certainty as^to the future isSis^impossible to arrive at as it-Would, probably be painful if it could be. gained. Nevertheless, tlier.e, i 3 in all our natures a hankering after the knowledge of the unknowable', and a desire to pry, by foul tne&ns'if- we'eannot managey.fair; ones,; into ;ihe s secrets; ; of': futurity." '"' " ' * The inarch of intellect and the advancement of education are supposed to be doing muc'i to. dr.iye.; out from • aniong us those remnante of '■'■ superstitioniwhich are here aridthereUeftf - But*every;;nbw; and.then we are startled by finding Tthat superstitionUurks even in places where its existence is least suspected. -;. £)f course; we are all familiar with: the.'.belief in fortune-telling by gipsies, and occasionally" we are startled, by accounts of villagers who'have felt themselves impelled, to assaults6ii poor* helpless old women, because they must " draw blood " from one by whom they believe themselves to have been bewitched. " There are still places where little children are made to wear silver brooches of a" -peculiar form, in order that they may be protected from the power of fairies; and belief in the restoration to her original shape of' a witch who had taken the form of a hare, and had been shot with a crooked sixpence, would be found existent at the present day, if looked for in the right place, in our own islands. All persons with any pretensions to education, or to going along with the age, would laugh at such things'if recounted, or would grieve over them, or would be properly shocked, if -the occasion seemed one as to which polite horror was the proper feeling to be exhibited. Nevertheless, there must, among our "middle and upper classes," be remaining a Tery large'leaven of that foolish desire to pryinto'the future, and that superstitious belief in the efficacy of talismans, to which "we have referred. Otherwise", how comes it that, in recording the circumstances attending the conviction and im- ; prisonment of one " John Major, an illiterate tailor," who was sent to prison as a "rogue and vagabond,'^ we-had to publish so curious an account af the correspondence found in his house ? ; There were several largo boxes full of letters from "clients," probably 70,000' :letters altogether; these were chiefly :from persons of the middlo and upper sclasses. Seventy thousand letters! a large number truly to have been found in the possession of a rogue and a vagabond oftfie fortune-telling kind. But Fetters did not constitute this man's only accumulation ;- he had also managed to make for himself an income of between £400 and £500 a year. This "John Major was atradvertisiog fortune-teller, who revealed " your, fortune, seven years, six stamps; complete, 30 stamps; love talisman, 16 stamps.;.; state-flgej'. sex* &c.X 'Hie sent lithographed letters in reply, and'ialisv mansj which were " bits of parchment, bearing a circle and some rough marks." \ Spine^of the lettersifotind were doubf;-: less sent for fun, some out of a weak curiosity." But who shall say how.tnany out o^tho 70,(300 letter-wriitersf really- believed that, for their certain number of stamps, they would get tidings as to the uncerfain future? While John .Majors exist among us, and flourish by 'the contributions of the "middle and upper classes," let us view with less supercilious contempt the superstitions of the lower classes, and-let us desire the extension of education wherever -it is needed. —The Queen.