Cure for Superstition.
Miners are known to be a superstitious race: their superstition, however, is sometimes made a pretext for idleness. There is a recipe for curing this species of the disorder. In some extensive mines in Wales the men frequently saw the Devil; and when once he had been seen, the men would work no more that day. This evil became serious, for Old Beelzebub repeated his visits so often, as if he had a design to injure the proprietor. That Gentleman, at last, called his men together, and told them, that it was very certain that the Devil never appeared to any body who had not deserved to be so terrified; and that, as he is determined to keep no rogues about him, he resolved to discharge the first man that saw the Devil again. The remedy was as efficient as if he had turned a stream of holy water into the mines.
Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 10th April 1819.
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