| Show BLADDER WIGGINS Of all the rank nuisances now dividing the attention of the country including the sea serpent Pleuropneumonia the I Maine majority and thQ grand and antlered an-tlered buck which the President did not shoot the rogue Wiggins of Canada an employe of the Ottawa observatory is the meanest For years past this man has vomited forth prophecy after prophecy telling of storms by sea and land earthquakes cyclones and other natural disturbances of the elements I until his name is heard with awe by tho ignorant and credulous and every season sea-son that brings about the vernal or au tuminal equinox is made a period of mutual mu-tual suffering to all who may not have sufficient knowledge of the motions of the earth to know that at these times disturbances f dis-turbances are more likely and frequent i than when the poles are nearest the sun t For the past two years the Atlantic coastline coast-line has been visited by severe storms I and great loss of life has followed l all of t I which Wiggins claims to have predicted I j and strange as it looks to sensible men f t many people believed him and are thus I II plunged in fear at each prediction of ruin he utters The signal service corps records I re-cords show that though the storms of f i these two years were heavy ones and disastrous li l dis-astrous to life and I property they were by no means phenomenal other storms having swept the same territory regularly for n hundred years before but Wiggins r so formulates his lying utterances that he can come in and claim the fulfillment t vr of his prophecies no matter when the I 1 storms occur The recent awful agitation 1 i agita-tion of tho earth in the Island of New 1 Zealand brought him to tho front again and he yawped out that this country would be visited by a like scourge and the occurrence at Charleston and p surrounding sur-rounding country was held up by the ig L H t t J1I norant as the fulfillment of his prophecy Wiggins is but a subordinate employe of the Ottawa concern and by expert scientists sci-entists said to be ignorant of scientific knowledgemaking only < wild guesses at chances based upon What he thinks is likely to follow any great disturbance and nothing more The poor terrorized people in the earthquake belt have learned of this tricksters prophecy that they are to be again visited with destruction destruc-tion and all the teaching and explanations explana-tions of the press and clergymen failed to relieve their fears If for no other cause than this Wiggins should be arrested and imprisoned where his senseless utterances ut-terances could not reach the outer world but aside from this the gentlemen who control the Ottawa observatory owe it to their own good names and the fair name of f science to remove this blot on their profession nor let an ignorant seeker after notoriety becloud the good name of the gentlemen there who profess and teach astromonical science |
