Page 6 Advertisements Column 3

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7432, 9 May 1911, Page 6

It is not surprising to read that the Chinese believe that the plague is caused hy an evil spirit, and that they are more eager to wear charms and amulets than to take medicine. For whenever the plague has appeared the common people of all countries have always had recourse to charms. Defoe, in his journal of the Plague year, speaks of the people "wearing charms, philtres, exorcisms, amulets, and I know not what preparations, to fortify the bodv with them against the plague. As if,” he adds, "the plague were a kind of possession of an evil spirit, to be kept off with crossings, sivns of the zodiac, etc." The Chinese declare that the plague spirit has the form of a woman, who flies through the air and scatters poison from a silver canister. But then the Chinese attribute most of their misfortunes to such wandering female demons, and seem to believe that woman in one form ;or another is the source of all evil.