Divination of the Bible and Key.
This was long popular, and is still practised. A case was tried before Mr. Ballantine, an English magistrate, as late as June 10th, 1832. "A person named Eleanor Blucher, a tall, muscular native of Prussia, was charged with an assault upon Mary White. They lived in the same court, and Mrs. White having lost several articles from her yard, suspected the defendant. She and her neighbors, after a consultation, agreed to have recourse to the key and Bible to discover the thief. They placed the street door-key on the fiftieth Psalm, closed the book, and fastened it very tightly with a garter. The Bible and key were then suspended to a nail; the prisoner's name was repeated three times by one of the women, while another recited the following words—
'If it turns to thee thou art the thief,
And we all are free.'
The incantation over, the key turned, or the women thought it did; they unanimously agreed that Mrs. Blucher had stolen two pairs of inexpressibles belonging to Mrs. White's husband, and severely beat her."
Visions of Destiny.
A singular mode of divination practised at the period of the harvest moon is thus described in an old chap-book: "When you go to bed, place under your pillow a prayer-book, opened at the part of the matrimonial service 'With this ring I thee wed;' place on it a key, a ring, a flower and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread and the following cards—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross your hands and say—
"Luna, every woman's friend,
To me thy goodness condescend;
Let me this night in visions see
Emblems of my destiny."
Selecting an Avocation.
A writer in "Notes and Queries" mentions a species of divination (sent him from Northamptonshire) of the leading events in a man's life, or rather of future employment, drawn from the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. This consists of thirty-one verses, each of which is supposed to have a mystical reference to each of the corresponding days of the month. Thus, a person born on the 14th will be prognosticated "to get their food from afar." This was so fully believed in by some, that a boy was actually apprenticed to a linen-draper, for no other reason than because he was born on the 24th of the month, the twenty-fourth verse of the chapter mentioning "fine linen."