Mr. Edward Lovett, the well-known authority on folk-lore, lecturing in London on The Folk-Lore of Natural History," said there was a good deal of logic and common sense in what was called superstition, and—_ undoubtedly reason also, although it might not always be good reason. The great cause of all superstition was dread of the unknown, and in times of peril like the war it was only to be expected that we should turn to the protection of mascots. Natural objects were still worn as charms in this country to an extent that was almost incredible. He had picked up a mandrake, shaped like a human form. on a barrow in the East End of London, and the dealer had told him that a little bit swallowed was a good cure for certain ills. The important fact to remember was that the mandrake and ether plants by their appearance had become medicines. Thus the Jung-wort was believed to be good for lung troubles, and red plants to be good for the blood. Pieces of orris root used in the case of teething children were preferred if they were in the shape of a human body, however roughly; and the apparently cramped foot of the mole was held to he a specific for cramp in man or woman.
Hundreds of agricultural labourers, declared Mr. Lovett, carried a mole's foot in their pocket; and he (the lecturer) had even seen them silver-mounted on sale in Paris shops. The fossil of the sear urchin, resembling a heart, was a remedy for heart trouble; iron pyrites (otherwise "thunderbolts") for ricketts; and brooches made out of madrepore coral for smallpox. The appearance of the stone in each case was supposed to have a sympathetic affinity in the human body. In like manner fishermen in the North Sea carved the amber brought up in their nets into heart-shapes and carried them as a safe guard against drowning. They believed, said Mr. Lovett, that the heart was the seat of life: they did not know it was only a pump. In North London he had found that a flint shaped like a swollen leg and foot was supposed to be a specific for the gout; while "everybody in Camberwell," according to one of. his informants, hung a horseshoe covered with red cloth at the head of his bed in order to prevent nightmare.
A lighted cigarette, carelessly left in a basement room full of inflammable material by one of two workmen, is stated to have been the cause of the disastrous fire at the Imperial Hotel, Tokio, causing the death of one man, damages of Y¥.1,000,000 to the property and heavy losses to 165 guests. the distance to the summit of the mountains from the north col being little under twa mites.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.