CHAIN LETTERS AGAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHAIN LETTERS AGAIN.

SILLY "BLACK MAGIC." IMPERTINENT AND A NUISANCE. LORD BADEN-POWELL'S WARNING. Lord Baden-Powell, following a fresh outbreak of the chain-letters superstition, recently issued, through the Sunday Express, a warning (o all the 3,000,000 members of the Boy Scout movement, urging tliem to smash for ever the black magic of the twentieth century. The Scout chief has just received his twelfth chain letter this year. It instructed him to:—"Make nine copies, and send this chain on within twentyfour hours of receiving it. Woe to you if you take this as a jest and do not pass it on, and so interrupt the chain of luck. Misfortune upon misfortune will overtake you." The letter followed its forerunners to the wastepaper basket, and still Lord Baden-Powell continues to enjoy success and happiness. Tlie chain letters superstition is one of the most dangerous of modern times. Sensible people can ignore them, but th6y have brought misery to neurotic persons who have broken the chain and then allowed the fictitious " curse " to prey on their minds.

" I do not treat the letter as ft jesfc," said Lord Baden-Powell. " I treat it as .1 gross impertinence and a nuisance. I have received scores of chain letters, and I have torn up every one of them. The writers of these letters know T tear them up, but seem to take a delight in pestering me with them. I shall continue to break every chain I can, and I ignore their threats of calamity. "Calamity, bosh! I have never had any bad luck as the result of breaking a chain letter. I think I have been exceptionally lucky in a good many tilings. Stern action should be taken against the writers of these letters, because nervous people receiving them frequently suffer ill-health. " Of all superstitions, the chain letter is the silliest, and yet it can be ono of the most harmful. A woman recently

committed suicide through fear of the consequences of not carrying out the instructions contained in a chain letter." The letter just received by Lord BadenPowell was stated to have been started by a street singer in Italy, and to have circulated all over Europe.