SUPERSTITIOUS FOLK.

Western Star, 23 December 1927, Page 3

SUPERSTITIOUS FOLK.

■——■ RELICS OF PRIMITIVE PAST, BELIEF IN THE EVIL EYE. ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE LIFE. The subject, ‘The folk of the Country side,’ 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, deputy-lieuten-ant for Suffolk, describing some as--pects of village life,, dealt first with relations of employer and employed. These, he said, wer e almost always frifindly, 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 riducle and con, tempt in the papers. The labourer shared ' with another most valuable class in the village;—and in the town, too—the domestic servant, a reputation for- stupidity aud 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 re-, spected of 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 I constantly see the children of a family well clothed and well fed on 30s a ■week. Before the war almost all brewed their own beer. In such an assembly as this I must be careful what I say as to the advantages of brewing beer, but while they fervently blieved! 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 stu/f + hat ar© 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 of great anxiety to the parson, Mr White remarked, adding: ‘I remember a case where the death of a man was attributed! to his being overlooked by the evil eye of, _ an nnpopular school mistress, while when an * old lady’s finger swelled so that her wedding ring had to be cut the reason given was the same. ‘Fairies -werey till lately tolerated, and only a week or two ago I was assured that, if bitten by a rat, the , sure means of averting evil consequences was to kill a rat. I remember a villager wlio 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.