"The suspicion that the cholera was caused by poisoning the wells was universal among the peasantry of the counties of Zips and Zemplin, and every one was fully convinced of its truth. The first commotion arose in Klucknow, where, it is said, some peasants died in consequence of taking the preservatives; whether by an immoderate use of medicine, or whether they thought they were to take chloride of lime internally, is not known. This story, with a sudden and violent breaking out of the cholera at Klucknow, led the peasants to a notion of the poisoning of the wells, which spread like lightning. In the sequel, in the attack of the estate of Count Czaki, a servant of the chief bailiff was on the point of being murdered, when, to save his life, he offered to disclose something important. He said that he received from his master two pounds of poisonous powder, with orders to throw it into the wells, and, with an ax over his head, took oath publicly, in the church, to the truth of his statement. These statements, and the fact that the peasants, when they forcibly entered the houses of the land-owners, every where found chloride of lime, which they took for the poisonous powder, confirmed their suspicions, and drove the people to madness. In this state of excitement, they committed the most appalling excesses. Thus, for instance, when a detachment of thirty soldiers, headed by an ensign, attempted to restore order in Klucknow, the peasants, who were ten times their number, fell upon them; the soldiers were released, but the ensign was bound, tortured with scissors and knives, then beheaded, and his head fixed on a pike as a trophy. A civil officer in company with the military was drowned, his carriage broken, and, chloride of lime being found in the carriage, one of the inmates was compelled to eat it till he vomited blood, which again confirmed the notion of poison. On the attack of the house of the lord at Klucknow, the countess saved her life by piteous entreaties: but the chief bailiff, in whose house chloride of lime was unhappily found, was killed, together with his son, a little daughter, a clerk, a maid, and two students who boarded with him. So the bands went from village to village; wherever a nobleman or a physician was found, death was his lot; and in a short time it was known that the high constable of the county of Zemplin, and several counts, nobles, and parish priests, had been murdered. A clergyman was hanged because he refused to take an oath that he had thrown poison into a well; the eyes of a countess were put out, and innocent children cut to pieces. Count Czaki, having first ascertained that his family was safe, fled from his estate at the risk of his life; but he was stopped at Kirtchtrauf, pelted with stones, and wounded all over, torn from his horse, and only saved by a worthy merchant who fell on him, crying, 'Now I have got the rascal.' He drew the count into a neighboring convent, where his wounds were dressed, and a refuge afforded him. His secretary was struck from his horse with an ax, but saved in a similar manner, and in the evening conveyed with his master to Leutschau."[31]
A little knowledge on the part of the peasantry would have prevented these horrible scenes. Had they learned even the elements of physiology and chemistry, they would have known that cleanliness is essential to health at all times, and that during the prevalence of a malignant epidemic it is doubly needful. They would have known, also, that chloride of lime is not a medicine to be taken internally, but that it is very useful for disinfecting offensive apartments, and that its tendency, when properly used, would be to counteract the cause of the disease which they so much dreaded.
Among all nations, and in all ages of the world, ignorance has not only debarred mankind from many exquisite and sublime enjoyments, but has created innumerable unfounded alarms, which greatly increase the sum of human misery. In the early ages of the world, a total eclipse of the sun or of the moon was regarded with the utmost consternation, as if some unusual catastrophe had been about to befall the universe. Believing that the moon in an eclipse was sickening or dying, through the influence of enchanters, the trembling spectators had recourse to the ringing of bells, the sounding of trumpets, the beating of brazen vessels, and to loud and horrid exclamations, in order to break the enchantment, and to drown the muttering of witches, that the moon might not hear them. Nor are such foolish opinions and customs yet banished from the world.
Comets, too, with their blazing tails, were long regarded, and still are by many, as harbingers of divine vengeance, presaging famines and inundations, or the downfall of princes and the destruction of empires. The northern lights have been frequently gazed at with similar apprehensions, whole provinces having been thrown into consternation by the fantastic coruscations of these lambent meteors. Some pretend to see in these harmless lights armies mixing in fierce encounter and fields streaming with blood, while others behold states overthrown, earthquakes, inundations, pestilences, and the most dreadful calamities. Because some one or other of these calamities formerly happened soon after the appearance of a comet or the blaze of an aurora, therefore they are considered either as the causes or the prognostics of such events.
Popular ignorance has given rise to the practice of judicial astrology; an art which, with all its foolish notions so fatal to the peace of mankind, has been practiced in every period of time. Under a belief that the characters and the fates of men are dependent on the various aspects of the stars and conjunctions of the planets, the most unfounded apprehensions, as well as the most delusive hopes, have been excited by the professors of this fallacious science. Such impositions on the credulity of mankind are founded on the grossest absurdity and the most palpable ignorance of the nature of things; still, in the midst of the light of science which the present century has shed upon the world, the astrologer meets with a rich support[32] even in the metropolis of Great Britain; and soothsayers, if not astrologers, get great gain by their craft in various portions of the United States. The extensive annual sale of hundreds of thousands of copies of almanacs that abound in astrological predictions in the United Stales and in Great Britain, and the extent to which they are consulted, affords a striking proof of the belief which is still attached to the doctrines of this fallacious science, and of the ignorance and credulity from which such a belief proceeds.
Shooting stars, fiery meteors, lunar rainbows, and other atmospherical phenomena, have likewise been considered by some as ominous of impending calamities, but they are regarded in a very different light by scientific observers. The most sublime phenomenon of shooting stars of which the world has furnished any record was witnessed throughout the United States on the morning of the 13th of November, 1833. This astonishing exhibition covered no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface. The first appearance was every where that of fire-works of the most imposing grandeur, covering the entire vault of heaven with myriads of fire-balls resembling sky-rockets; but the most brilliant sky-rockets and fire-works of art bear less relation to the splendors of this celestial exhibition than the twinkling of the most tiny star to the broad glare of the noonday sun. Their coruscations were bright, gleaming, and incessant, and they fell thick as the flakes in the early snows of December. The whole heavens seemed in motion, and suggested to some the awful grandeur of the image employed in the Apocalypse upon the opening of the sixth seal, when "the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind."
While these scenes of grandeur were viewed with unspeakable delight by enlightened scientific observers, the ignorant and superstitious were overpowered with horror and dismay. The description which a gentleman of South Carolina gave of the effect produced by this phenomenon upon his ignorant blacks will apply well to many hardly better informed white persons. "I was suddenly awakened," said he, "by the most distressing cries that ever fell upon my ears. Shrieks of horror and cries of mercy I could hear from most of the negroes of three plantations, amounting in all to about six or eight hundred. While earnestly listening for the cause, I heard a faint voice near the door calling my name: I arose, and, taking my sword, stood at the door. At this moment I heard the same voice still beseeching me to rise and saying, 'O! my God, the world is on fire!' I then opened the door, and it is difficult to say which excited me most, the awfulness of the scene or the distressed cries of the negroes. Upward of one hundred lay prostrate on the ground, some speechless, and some with the bitterest cries, but most with their hands raised, imploring God to save the world and them. The scene was truly awful, for never did rain fall much thicker than the meteors fell toward the earth; east, west, north, and south, it was the same."
Those harmless meteors, the ignes fatui, which hover above moist and fenny places in the night-time, emitting a glimmering light, have been regarded by the ignorant as malicious spirits endeavoring to deceive the bewildered traveler and lead him to destruction. The plaintive note of the mourning dove, the ticking noise of the little insect called the death-watch, the howling of a dog in the night-time, the meeting of a bitch with whelps, or a snake lying in the road, the breaking of a looking-glass, and even the falling of salt from the table, and the curling of a fiber of wick in a burning candle, together with many other equally harmless incidents, have been regarded with apprehensions of terror, being considered as unfailing signs of impending disasters or of approaching death.
Dr. Dick remarks, that in the Highlands of Scotland—and it should be borne in mind that the Scotch are, as a nation, better instructed, and more moral and religious in their habits, than any other people in Europe—the motions and appearances of the clouds were, not long ago, considered ominous of disastrous events. On the evening before new year's day, if a black cloud appeared in any part of the horizon, it was thought to prognosticate a plague, a famine, or the death of some great man in that part of the country over which it seemed to hang; and in order to ascertain the place threatened by the omen, the motions of the clouds were often watched through the whole night. In the same country, the inhabitants regard certain days as unlucky, or ominous of bad fortune. The day of the week on which the third of May falls is deemed unlucky throughout the year.
With a very slight change, a part of this description would apply well to our own country, even up to the present time. How many thousands of days are lost annually in the United States in consequence of superstitious fears in relation to setting out upon a journey, entering upon a new pursuit of any kind, or even beginning to plant or plow on Friday, the unlucky day of the Americans. How many persons have had misfortunes attend them all their lives because they were born, or christened, or married on Friday! How many houses have been burned because they were begun, raised, or moved into on Friday! How many steamboats and vessels have been burned or wrecked because they were launched or sailed on Friday! And yet, strange as it may seem, this is the very day on which Columbus set sail on a voyage that resulted in the discovery of the New World.