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EXTRAORDINARY CREDULITY IN BIRMINGHAM.

The Birmingham Post says :—A singular evidence of the survival of superstition in the nineteenth century, and of the strong grip which it retains on ignorant persons was furnished on Wednesday in Birmingham. Some clays ago the newspapers contained the bold prediction of some sapient astrologer that on the_ 11th of January, in consequence of "the violent fiery planet Mars" forming a conjunction with the evil planet Urauus" in the 18th degree of the zodiacal sign Libra and at the same time of the evil aspect of Mercury which was misohevious enough to present itself 80 degrees distant, the unhappy denizens of this globe may look out for all manner of calamities. Among these were named " many sudden deaths among the nobles of the land, numerous accidents in collieries, fires, explosions, murders, war 3, earthquakes," and lastly as a makeweight, -'storms and high winds, with many untoward events, resulting in mnch fatality." The wide comprehensiveness of this programme of prophecy, which is instructive and amusing to the judicious, seems to have had a very different meaning to the unskilful. To them it was explicable only on the supposition that the last day was at hand. The occurrence of thick darkness at an earlier hour of the day than it might have been expected in the absence of a fog was accepted by more than a few as a startling confirmation of the prophecy, although it had not been specifically named by the prophet. The police report that not only did old women betake themselves to their Bibles with unusual zeal, but younger womeu remained in bed all day, dreading the coming earthquake. Children were kept away from school as a similar precaution, and those who attended school came home full with alarmist rumours. Two little folks the children of a police-inspector begged their father at dinner-time not to be out in the street at midnight, for two stars were going to meet and burst and set the world on tire. In Constitntion-hill, the new cable being set running as a trial of its working, a tradesman, startled by the unusual noise it made, rushed out of his shop with a pale face and called the attention of a passerby to it, offering the suggestion that it was the first symptom of a convulsion of the earth's crust. From the Ladywood police-station it was reported that there seemed to be a " general state of fear." Some women called at the Moseley street police-statien in the hope of deriving comfort and support from the constable in charge of the office, and seemed a good deal shocked at the levity in which he treated their forbodings. They went away at last to buy a copy of the Bible, for which three of them clubbed together their coppers. At Morestreet- Policecourt, in the morning a woman of the same closs, on being fined a shilling for uttering threats of bodily harm, had accepted the alternative of a week's imprisonment with tho observation thatit didn't matter, for that the world would be at an end soon. At night a half drunken soldier was found praying in Holloway's Head, with all the fervour of fright and a troubled conscience.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT18880324.2.51.7

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Word count
Tapeke kupu
537

EXTRAORDINARY CREDULITY IN BIRMINGHAM. Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXTRAORDINARY CREDULITY IN BIRMINGHAM. Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

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