SOME CURIOUS VOWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1429, 15 February 1888, Page 5

SOME CURIOUS VOWS.

A curious and somewhat ludicrous incident occurred in Belgrade in 1867. A body of well-known Servians, all members of the extreme patriotic party, marched through the streets with long beards down to their knees, escorted by a number of barbers, razors in hand, and in this way entered the fortress, when the barbers proceeded at once to strip those beautiful pards of their hirsute adornments, and sont them out clean shaved. The fact is that on the bombardment of Belgrade, in 1862, these Servians vowed never to let a razor touch their faces until they could shave in the fortress itself on the day on which the Turkish troops abandoned ifc, and they completed their vow in the manner described. Vienna owes its Church of St. Charles to avow made by the Emperor Charles VI. during an epidemic. In 1867 a handsome Spanish lady, attired in the garb of a pilgrim of the olden time, appeared in the streets of Toulon. She went on her way home to Madrid, having footed it from the city of Home in fulfilment of a vow made when she fancied herself at death's door. In the like extremity an Italian princess vowed to undertake a journey to the Holy Sepulchre — no very arduous undertaking now a-days to anyone. There is a story of a jovial waiter whom some kind friends sought to frighten into making a vow of sobriety. They told him a shocking tale of one who drank not wisely but too well, and was killed by blowing out a candle, the flame having ignited the alcohol fumes of his breath. He listened, believed, and was duly horrified. Calling for a Bible.he kissed the book then and there, and solemnly swore that never again so long as he lived would he try to blow out a candle. The waiter was a wise man. He knew himself, and limited his vow accordingly. Shrewder far was the Pittsburg man who swore never to touch another drop so long as he had a hair on his head, and the very same evening had his head shaved, and got drunk, with the proud consciousness of having kept his vow.