People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — SOOTHSAYING. [ARTICLE]

SOOTHSAYING.

Decline and Fall of the Once Nob'o Art ut : Reading; the Future. In ancient times every monarch and prince, great or little, kept his soothsayers, or at least had recourse to some person who pretended to read the j future in the stars or somewhere else, j We have still persons who assume to be able to foretell the future; but the great different 1 tween past ages and the present in this regard is that then the great and often wise men of the earth believed in the soothsayers, while now only the foolish and feeble have any confidence in them. The decline in the credit and honor of soothsaying dates in a considerable measure, perhaps, from a certain performance of John Galeazzo, duke of Milan. He, too, had a soothsayer. One day the reader of the stars came to him and said: “My lord, make haste to arrange your earthly affairs.” “And why shall I do that?" asked the duke. “Because the stars tell me that yon have not long to live.” “Indeed! And what do the stars tell you about yoiu' own lease of life?" asked Duke John. “They promise me many years mon of life.” “They do?” “So I have read them, my lord.” “Well, then,” said the duke, “it up pears that the stars know very little about these things, for you will b<j hanged within half an hour!” He sent the soothsayer to the gallows with promptness and lived many years afterward himself. Star-reading . fell into disuse in Milan from that ! time.—Youth’s Companion.