Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1875 — The Curse of the Koh-i-Noor. [ARTICLE]

The Curse of the Koh-i-Noor.

Mrs. Burton —the wife of Capt. Burton, Ihe African traveler, and a lady of great culture and intelligence—writes a book about the curse that clings to the Koh-i-Noor. This famous diamond is now the chief jewel of the British crown, and Queen Victoria sometimes wears it. Mrs. Barton advises her to discard the great diamond of ill-omen, and suggests its utter destruction and obliteration from the face of the earth. The Koh-i-Noor has been a ray of the light ofthe world for a long time, (and to annihilate it would be like blotting out a star. Still Mrs. Burton thinks it ought to be extinguished for the harm it has caused, and entailed upon all its possessors. The Koli-i-Noor is supposed to have been a product of the rich mines of Golconda. Its history iaindeed quite singular, independent of the traditional romance that surrounds it like a halo of misty light. It has been the ambition of Kings, and caused the fail and destruction of empires. - It is responsible for many assassinations and conspiracies, and has mustered armies and won and lost battles, and played smash with the Indian monarchies generally. The finder is supposed to have been murdered for it, and

to have cursed his assassin and all future possessors of the “mountain of light” with his last breath. It is bis cufM that still clings to it, accenting to Mrs. Barton. It is the purest Stone in tiie world, and though not now the largest its value is fabulous. Its slim by the family of Bunjeet Singh, the Lion of the Punjab. At the conquest of the Punjab the Koh-i-Noor became a British crown-jewel and fell into, the lap of Queen Victoria. Mrs. Bartoptells the Queen that Lord Dalhousie, who sent it to her, dtod soon afterward; that tiie Duke of Wellington, who gave the first stroke to the new cutting of the diamond,,lived but three months, and that Prince Albert next fell a victim to the ancient curee.. Bhe warns the Queen to throw it « giveitaway to her “ dearest ecutay,” if she has one, and predicts that Its passes slop bodes disaster to England. Notwithstanding her culture and intelligence Mire. Burton appears to be painfully superatitious. She seems to have been magnetized by this great white stone. 14 is ; ' hardly likely that she wants to make ty a terror so as to get hold of it herself, though such things have been, and the Koh-i-Noor, with its good name, is A princely fortune in a very small nutshell. If Queen Victoria is like other women she will hold on to her diamonds.—£<, Louis Republican.