Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1920 — Superstitious Londoners. [ARTICLE]

Superstitious Londoners.

In London there is said to be a deep-seated belief among East end girts in the efficacy of dragon’s-blood as a love-phlltre. Touching oh the same subject, a Whitechapel herbalist relates how a girt, after buying some tormentll root of his, volunteered the Information that, having been jilted by her young man, she consulted a “wise woman,” who told her to get a bunch of tormentll and burn it at midnight on a Friday. The faithlees one would then revert to his allegiance. On three successive Saturdays sho returned for fresh supplies of the root, when either the charm worked or she grew tired of it, MS sho ceased her purchases. Mandrake, too, is largely purchased by superstitious cockneys. Every Sunday at a pitch by Petticoat lane a hawker does a profitable trade In slices of mandrake, which, he assures his audience, will cere everything. On his barrow ar* a few roots carefully delected for their resemblance to the ■ human form. “Gathered at midnight,” he shouts, “and they screamed terrible when pulled out of the ground.”