SUPERSTITIOUS FOLK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19798, 19 November 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUPERSTITIOUS FOLK.

RELICS OF PRIMITIVE PAST.

BELIEF IN THE EVIL EYE. •3 ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE LIFE. The subject, The Folk of the Countryside," was dealt with at the recent Church Congress at Ipswich from three angles—the village, the country town, and the holiday resort. Mr. R. Eaton White, deputylieutenant for Suffolk, describing some aspects of village life, dealt first with the relations of employer and employed. These, he said, were almost always friendly, and many of them took a very real interest in the farm and its prosperity. Very few townsmen had any idea of the character and capacity of the agricultural worker. Unfortunately, it was too common to find him the subject of ridicule and contempt in the papers. The labourer shared with another most valuable class in the villago—and in the town, too—the domestic servant, a reputation for stupidity and inefficiency which excited contempt in the mind of the ignorant, and which prevented many a man from remaining on the land, and

many a girl from going into domestic service—one of the most useful, honourable, and, to the considerate employer, the most respected of all professions, and on whose numbers the happiness of squire or farmer so much depended. " Of the mothers of the village I must speak with diffidence, but with all respect," said Mr. White, " for 1 constantly see the children of a family well clothed and well fed on 30 shillings a week. Before the war almost all brewed their own beer. In such an assembly as this I must be careful what 1 say as to the advantages of brewing beer, but while they fervently believe that home-brewed beer will help you in the dry hours of harvest, drunkenness is certainly not 'their weakness. Shall I shock this assembly if I quote with approval the words of a former rector of ours? 'lt isn't the people who brew the good stuff that are to blame, but the silly asses who take too much.' " (Laughter). In the more remote parts the symptoms of the survival of the primitive past were very startling, and though often harmless and interesting, they sometimes were the cause f of great anxiety to the parson, Mr. White remarked, adding: " I remember a case where the death of a nidTi was attributed to his being overlooked by the evil eye of an unpopular school mistress, while when an old lady's finger swelled so that her wedding ring had to be cut the reason given was the sa rnc.

" Fairies were till lately tolerated, and only a week or two ago 1 was assured flat, if bitten by a rat, the sure means of averting evil consequences was to kill a rat. I remember a villager who went to work on a farm from which he could see the church tower, and he felt so homesick that he was forced to go back."