Show STRANGE biome instances 0 the efficacy of anew cleri the london spectator lately had a clever article entitled the Tyranny of coincidence the example shown is of a lady who was driving outside of athens when the horses were halted one of the team refused his oats the greek coachman insisted that the horse was under a spell the young english lady had an evil eye the man told miss symonds to spit that was the only cure the young woman was forced to go through the unladylike performance and at once the horse took to his feed the coincidence riveted the chains of superstition upon the driver tighter than ever many coincidences of a similar character must occur reader here is a case A child was told to put a four leaf closer in his left shoe and was assured that he would be sure to find something the little boy did so and had hardly moved out of his tracks in a large grass grown pasture before he found an old half dollar of an ancient date evidently lost years before the child was not superstitious and fortunately the parents were not the matter of coincidence was explained to him and among other things he was plentifully supplied with four leaf but he never found anything the origin of superstition associated with amulets or any material objects must owe its being to just such coincidences among those who are not educated it may be that the tyranny of coincidence does exist but it should not hold with those having sound minds we all have however a dark chamber in our brains and it is there that the owls and bats of superstition flap their wings |