An Arabian Druid in Paris

1905

Strange mystics are discovered in Paris every now and again. The latest is described as an Arabian Druid who inhabited the Rue de la Michodiere, a street in the center of the city.

His neighbors were startled at midnight to hear weird and discordant sounds issuing from the dwelling of Ali Bonem, followed by ritualistic incantations and liturgical chantings, alternatively plaintive and fierce. The reflection of flames was also observed.

When the door was burst open by the police a man of huge stature was seen, clothed in a long white sheet, his eyes rolling wildly, and in his hand a bloodstained knife. Around him a number of wax candles shed a mystic light, and on a piano, which had served as an altar, lay a disemboweled lamb. As a measure of precaution Al Bonem, the high priest, has been taken into custody. — London Globe.


Honesty Carried to Extremes

An American millionaire while driving an automobile in France ran over and killed a dog. Near the scene of the accident was a peasant, presumably the owner of the dog. To him the millionaire gave a bank note. But the peasant was not the owner of the dog and he was honest, but before he could make up his mind to return the money the automobile and its driver were beyond recall.

None the less the peasant would not keep the bill, and when the automobilist next rode past that place some months later he discovered the dog's skeleton at the side of the road with the bank note attached to it and a penciled line calling attention to the mistake.

Longfellow's "Hiawatha"

1896

The Indian epic of "Hiawatha" took the world by surprise, writes Hezekiah Butterworth in an article "How Longfellow Wrote His Best-Known Poems" in Ladies' Home Journal.

Its form and its matter were for a long time mysteries. How could a Cambridge literary recluse produce such an epic? Certain critics claimed that the idea, form and magic treatment of the poem had been borrowed from a Scandinavian sage, and the implication greatly disturbed his publishers, and must have caused his sensitive spirit great pain. It partly eclipsed for a time the new star in the literary horizon on which all eyes were fixed.

The criticism was disarmed; the wonder grew; a fixed star had appeared. But the mystery of the poem is simply solved. Longfellow desired to produce an epic that should be in sympathy with all that was most beautiful and noble in the vanishing Indian race. Abraham Le Fort, an Onondaga chieftain, had furnished Schoolcraft, the historian, much Indian lore and many mystic traditions, with certain Indian vocabularies, in which the musical and unmusical sounds of many words indicated their meaning.

These traditions and vocabularies made the work of the poet easy. One only needs to read Schoolcraft, to whom the poet acknowledged his indebtedness, to see how this monument to the Indian race, their only great literary memorial, was builded.

Court Interrupts Founder of "Perfect Woman" Cult

Chicago, 1922

Court Interrupts Founder of Cult

Mrs. Rachael Marie Riggs was reigning on her throne in her home, surrounded by mystic symbols, weird pictures and curious charms, when Chicago police interrupted her reign to ask her to appear in court to answer a charge of contributing to the delinquency of two wards of the court. She claims to see the coming of the perfect woman.

—The Coshocton Tribune, Coshocton, OH, Jan. 18, 1922, p. 1.

Note: I've seen three different publications of this article. They're all from a common source, of course, but each one says she claims to "see" the coming of the perfect woman, not "be" the perfect woman, so apparently there is no typo.

Boy Victim of Cult is Lost; The Zoroastrian Connection

1912--

BOY VICTIM OF CULT IS LOST

William Lindsay is Stolen From the Custody of Court Officer

CHICAGO, Jan. 4.—A second disappearance of William Lindsay, 13 years old, heir to the fortune of his uncle, Charles R. Lindsay of Philadelphia; the appearance on the witness stand of a cult leader, and the introduction of testimony controverting the latter's assertion that the boy and his mother held places in the cult different from other members, were the features of today's hearing in the juvenile court involving the Rev. Dr. Ottoman Zar Adusht Hanish, head of the Mazadazuan cult here.

The proceedings are the outgrowth of the uncle's attempt to remove the boy from the cult's "temple" here, where he was living and where, with his mother, he was receiving "treatment" in accordance with the Mazdaznan belief.

Attorney Oscar Brecher, to whom the boy has been entrusted by the court, reported that an abduction plot had made it impossible for him to keep his promise to have the boy present today.

Hanish denied knowledge of the whereabouts of the boy or of his mother. He declared himself of royal descent, and said that he was known by the term "master" to his followers; said he became a doctor at a Chicago medical school and was characterized as "reverend" by his own society. He told of trips about the country with the Lindsay boy at the mother's expense; told of visiting Mrs. Lindsay at her New York apartment and denied that any improprieties took place at the temple.

Mrs. Alma Reakirt of New York, sister of Mrs. Lindsay, said her sister had told her Dr. Hanish was considered the reincarnation of Christ. She also described mystic rites of adoration performed before pictures of Christ and Hanish by Mrs. Lindsay and the boy. Mrs. Lindsay, she said, told her Hanish said she was a princes of France and that the boy was the "lost orphan of Louis XVI."

Mrs. Asenth Cochran of New York, a friend of Mrs. Lindsay, said the latter had told her of the discovery of Christ in Hanish and gave as proof the statement that the cult leader "told her all about herself."

--The Billings Gazette, Billings, Montana, January 5, 1912, page 1.