MODERN SUPERSTITIONS. 235 



transparent, will serve for a bait to catch the unwary and over-eager 

 fish. Nothing is so purblind as undue acquisitiveness. The ancient 

 Highlander with his keen eye to the main chance and happy facility 

 for " attaching " whatever came in his way, found a beautiful horse 

 in rich trappings, browsing ownerless in his path, and, following the 

 instinct of his desire rather than the prudence which tradition should 

 have taught him, rashly mounted. In an instant he was borne aloft, 

 then plunged forever beneath the dark waters of a tarn on the back 

 of the wily and terrible water-kelpie. We, too, have our illusory 

 steeds in this so vaunted age, and neither the teachings of history nor 

 the bitterest experience seems able to prevent the speculator from 

 vaulting into the saddle, and forthwith launching into perdition. 



Charms are things of the past, or believed in merely by the vul- 

 gar ; that is to say, those pretty and fanciful conceits which led our 

 ancestors to attach a healing or sanitary virtue to certain objects and 

 ceremonies are now almost extinct. A spray from the rowan-tree is 

 no longer a safeguard against an epidemic, nor the hand of majesty a 

 cure for scrofula. Ladies do not now believe that the presence of a 

 piece of cold iron on their couch, "while uneasy in their circum- 

 stances" will secure a happy consummation ; nor is a child's caul in 

 much request in these days as a protection against fire and drowning. 

 True, Ave have got over these beliefs pretty thoroughly. But is the 

 desire for infallible remedies and potent protectives done away with 

 also ? Not in the least ; and though science is doing its best to pro- 

 vide honest substitutes in a natural measure, the public is not satis- 

 fied with its efforts. Quacks are the modern magicians, and quack 

 medicines the charms of latter days. Those who are bald, for in- 

 stance, will not accept their fate while a single well-puffed elixir with 

 a Greek name remains untried. There is something saddening, if not 

 sickening, in the evident success which attends the pretenses to cure 

 chronic and irremediable diseases, to effect miracles in short with the 

 most trumpery of means and execrably silly devices. Our forefathers 

 were imposed upon, no doubt, but there was method in their madness. 

 The " simples " with which spae-wives and charlatans professed to 

 cure ailments were in many cases effective and now recognized drugs, 

 and were at the worst perfectly harmless ; while the rites with which 

 they were administered, if quite apart from the purpose, yet appealed 

 gracefully to the imagination. Nowadays, however, the " simples " 

 are the patients and not the medicines ! The old story. Childlike, 

 the age cries for something that it cannot get, rejecting the good that 

 is within reach. 



In a recent number of this Journal, we had occasion to refer to 

 the amazing credulity of Americans on the subject of professional 

 " mediums." The worst of it is, that the extent to which this has been 

 laid bare is insignificant compared with that which really remains un- 

 exposed. The desire to work with supernatural tools in effecting the 



