THE "SNOWBALL" PRAYER.
The practical joker or scoffing unbeliever who originated the "Snowbal l ; -Prayer," in imitation of the Melbourne Hospital Collecting "Snowball" of some years back, which became a world-wide nuisance, is producing mental distress in numerous families, m addition to cultivating much superstition. This is increasingly evident from the letters which are reaching the Daily Mail' each day. The tendency of many people is to ascribe any misfortune that overtakes them to their neglect of tho "Snowball" demand that they should copy a prayer nine times and send it on the ninth day t<i nine of their friends ; and thus j mere coincidence of misfortune on tha j ninth day is superstiticusly elevated into a solemn visitation of sovereign punishment. One letter received recently from Bournemouth is an illustration of this. Our correspondent received the prayer from some anonymous writer in Devonshire, with the usual accompanying letter threatening dire consequences if the chain should be broken. «Sha writes :—: — "It caused me great uneasiness, l had been away for my health, and had not long arrived home, \ery tired, and with a great deal to do and think about I put the letter on one side, intending to givt it to the clergyman and aslc his advice, but I did not. Exactly nine days after receiving it a pipe burst in tho cistern at the top of the house, causing much damage and expense ; and ever since then there has been nothing but one chain of trouble and various illness with us " The Rev. J. W. Hayes, of West Thurrock Vicarage, Grays, Essex, writes : — "■Sir, — I received some few weeks ago a letter containing this "Snowball Prayer," with a request to write out nine copios, and, seeing that it was very likely to propagate a superstitious view of prayer, I burnt it, not knowing at the time r,he sunder. Shortly afterwards, when visiting a person upon whom a sudden and grievous calamity had come, that person asked me if I had received ,i copy of the prayar. I said "Yes." Then the person remarked : "That grayer wns sent to me by the Rev , and it was not of mucl: use, for on the day I wrote the eighth copy this great calamity took piece." It seemed strange to me that v ctarpymau, of all men, should assist in spieading superstition. The recipient alluded to evidently regarded tne prayei in the first instance as a charm, or else < fancied that the merit gained by writing it out would secure some advantage "m the soul — both views most mischievous and quite antagonistic to Church '•f England teaching. — J. W. Hayes." Mr. Alfred J. Thompson, licensed Jay /eader, of Warwick Gardens, Harring;ty ParK, N., writes: "Some_ short time ago I was pestered with this nuisance and promptly deposited the 'prayers' in the fire." This form of snowball is of unknown and not recent origin, for a correspondent at Southond states that do jcccwcd a similar letter "a few years ago," but its extensive circulation in England appears to have begun with the year 1907. A rougn i>uinputatioii of the number of copie.* ot the objectionable epistle which would be written in the course of a year providod each recipient kept the chain unbroken, has been made by Mr. V. H. Copping, of Pier View-terrace, Ralma-tia-road. Southend : "In 360 days," he •ays, "it would amount to 10,000,000, followed by twenty-nine additional cyphers." (That is to say, in British numeration, it would exceed one sextillion, or in the French-American computation, 1 one thousand decillions.)
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19070323.2.72
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 70, 23 March 1907, Page 9
Word Count
590THE "SNOWBALL" PRAYER. Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 70, 23 March 1907, Page 9
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