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Show , How It Started By Jean Newton I -J rXKKX0K0KOWO00000000 "THE DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST" THIS saying, a popular and self-explanatory member of our modern slang lexicon, was originally "The devil takes the hindmost." And. although al-though it is agreed that It was Id the superstition and myth tenanted days of the Middle ages that It had its beginning, there are two accredited accredit-ed versions of its origin. According to one, the circumstance of its beginning took place in Scotland, Scot-land, where it is said that when a class of medieval students had made certain progress in their mystic studies they were required to run through n subterranean hall and the last man was understood to have been seized by the devil and become his Imp. The other version attributes the saying to the Reformation in Germany, when people first began straying from the confessional and the Catholic church, and parish priests were exhorted ex-horted to keep their floeks together. In their efforts to do this, we are told, they admonished . their parishioners to come to church and to come early, because "The devil takes the hindmost hind-most !" In the minds of the simple folk of those days there was fertile soil for the nurture and growth of such an idea, which, once expressed, was quickly passed on and given widespread wide-spread credence. How widespread this was is proven by the fact that it has survived to this day in literature and in speech. It is found in the works of Prior. Pope. Burns and other oth-er great names in English iiterature. Butler. In "lludribras," used It as fol lows : "Bid the devil take the hindmost." (Copyright. 1 |