THE PANICS OF THE DAY.
AN author, whose writings are applicable to all times and occasions, has observed of our nation, that " though it he exempt from real evils, think not that it is more happy on that account than others. They are afflicted, it is true, with neither famine nor pestilence ; but then there is a disorder peculiar to the country, which every season makes strange ravages among them : it spreads with pii.itilential rapidity, and infects almost every rank of people : what is still more strange, the natives have no. name for this peculiar malady, though well known to foreign physicians by the appellation of etthlem r ter my. " A season is never known lo pass in which the people are not visited by this cruel calamity in one chap; or another, seemingly different, though ever the same ; one year, it issues from a baker's shop in the shape of a sixpenny loaf ; the next, it takes the appearance of a comet with a fiery tail ; a third, it threatens like a flat-bottomed boat ; and a fourth, it car- ries consternation at the bite of a mad dog. The people, when once infected, lose their relish for happiness, saunter about with looks of de- spondence, ask after the calamities of the day, and receive no comfort but in heightening each other's distress. It is insignificant how remote or near, how weak or powerful the object of terror may be : when once they resolve to fright or be frighted, the merest trifles sow consternation and dismay ; each proportions his fears, not to the object, but to the dread he discovers in the countenance of others ; fur when once the fermen- tation is begun, it goes on of itself, though the original cause he discon- tinued which first set it in motion."
Just at the present instant, the nation has the happiness of re- joicing in two panics, and people may make their choice of then' according, to their tastes. Popery and Burkery are the terrors in: vogue. Some fear the Pope ; others, plasters,—according to their tastes and circumstances. As our essayist observes, " when epi- demic terror is thus once excited, every morning comes loaded with some new disaster ; as in stories of ghost s, each loves to hear the account though it only serves to make him uneasy. So: here each listens with eagerness, and adds to the tidings \vial new circumstances of peculiar horror." Thus, for example, we read in all the newspapers, the following story, which is copied from print to print, and most potently believed in every particular of fact and inference.
" TilE BUnEING SYSTEM CONTINUED.—The woman Gowenlock had left a neighbour's house, and proceeded for a short way along the road in the direction of Kelso, when she was suddenly seized by two ruffians, who instantly crammed her mouth with tow, and then tied her wrists with cords, after which they threw her down and performed the same operation on her legs. From that moment ex- treme terror rendered her completely insensible; but before her senses forsook her, she heard one of the ruffians say to the other, " Bring the sack." It appears, however, that when these desperadoes first sprung upon her, she had screamed out and made aconsiderable noise ; for the inmates of the house she had left, hearing sounds indicative of distress, imme- diately repaired towards the spot whence they proceeded, seared the vil- lains ere they had time to bag their intended victim, and found the poor woman in the state we have described, her mouth tilled with tow, and her legs and arms firmly tied with cords. She was recovered with diffi- culty from the swoon into which she had been thrown by this sudden at- tack with its appalling concomitants, and has ever since been in a state of high delirium, with very few intervals of returning sense"and reason. During these, however, she mentions the words used by the one ruffian to the other, when the operation of binding her hand and foot had been, nearly convicted. When the intelligence of this horrid audacity reached the authorities here, they immediately despatched an active and zealous officer to the spot ; and he has pursued his inquiries with such ability and perseverance, that he has been able to trace the perpetrators of this atro- city to Edinburgh, where we have little doubt that he will ultimately suc- ceed in apprehending them. In the course of following out a clew which he had found, this individual, a few nights ago, came in contact with six notorious resurrectionists, all of whom asserted that the Bunking sys- tem was still going on ; and the facts we have mentioned seem to cor- roborate the assertion. Indeed, the escape of Hare, as well as the mere accident which led to the discovery and detection of the Westport murders and their perpetrators, are well calculated to encourage the desperadoes who supply the dissecting-rooms to continue the trade of assassination." —Caledonian Mercury.
Now has it never struck the sage reporters and adopters of this tale of terror, that it would have been much more safe and easy for the men to murder the woman at once, than to lose time in capturing and bagging her alive? While employed in gagging, a little more tow in the mouth would have superseded the necessity of tying legs and arms ; and if murder was the purpose, they would as readily have committed it at first, sur le champ, as at last.
The absurdity may be illustrated by another story:— A gentleman much troubled wit it fleas, having read an account of the great virtues of a certain powder invented especially for their destruction, purchased a box of it, and scattered it about his apart- ment, but without. abating in any degree the vivacity of the enemy's attack; who, as he said, would have carried him. from his bed had they but been unanimous. Exasperated with disappointment and flea-bites, he hied hint to the vender, a Frenchman, and complained bitterly of the imposition ; when the following dialogue passed.
Mon8i-ur—"Vel, but, Saar, how did you use de powder fur killing de leetel fleas ?"
Complainant—" Use it? Why I scattered it about the room, to be sure. How else could I use it ?"
Monsieur—" Ali, but dat is quite wrong. I shall tell you how to use dat powder vich kills fleas like an angel. First, Saar, you catch do flea. Den you take him, and squeeze him by de nape of his neck till he gape. Den Yen he gape, you put a leetel of de powder down his throat. Den, Saar, you let him run again ; and I engage he die of de powder, and troble you never no more."
It certainly strikes us, that for Burkites to stop a woman's mouth with tow, and then to tie her hands and feet, and carry her alive in a sack to slaughter, is pretty much like making: the flea gape to give him a dose of slow poison, insa_!ad of adopting the shorter and more immediate process of crushing him to death on the instant.
We believe that many of the outrages attributed to Burliites, are purely mischievous practical jokes on the popular panic. As such, they merit severe punishment.
Previous page
