Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/523

Rh for good and all, ages ago, the other is a habit of the day, and scruples are contagious.

Scruples that interfere with the easy flow of social intercourse, and induce a sense of enstrangement and incongruity, will always be equally unpopular. Scruples of dress, diet, diction, precision of statement, humanity, amusement, ultra-honesty, ultra-veracity, are of this class, as setting up a higher standard than the current one.

 

 From All the Year Round.

hysteria plays a more important part in many demonstrations — physical, mental, and spiritual — than is generally supposed, will not be denied, at any rate, by medical men. Those indefinite distresses to which human nature, and especially female human nature, is more or less subjected, and which have borne at different times different names, such as the vapours, the spleen, the megrims, the nerves — and ennui should, perhaps, be added to the list — are nothing but varied forms of hysteria. So, again, great emotional excitements, whether produced by alarm, eagerness, or even religion, may be often traced to the same source. The wild frenzies of Bacchantes on Theban mountains; the restless dancing of Italian girls, said to have been bitten by the tarantula; the fervent jumping of some orders of Methodists; the weeping and contrition at revivals — though we do not deny for a moment that other better or worse causes may be at work simultaneously — have all a physical element of hysteria in them. Hysteria is decidedly common in India; not unfrequently amongst men, and very frequently amongst women. With the latter sex, the wearing climate may be accredited with part of the mischief, but other causes doubtless exist in early marriage, early child-bearing, seclusion, and want of air and exercise; or in the case of women in the humblest walks of life, opposite evils may operate towards the same results — over-work, insufficient nutriment, exposure to heat, etc. The somewhat violent measures occasionally resorted to may not do much harm in simply hysterical cases; but it is painful to think that, with a wholly imperfect diagonis, remedies may be applied to actual insanity which can only tend to greaily aggravate the disease. The belief that persons in a hysterical condition are possessed by evil spirits is universal, and superstitious cures are sought after, though in different ways, by professors of both the great religions of the land — many of the lower Hindoos resorting to magic, which may be considered as applying to the devil, while the Mussulman would seek by charms and sacred exorcisms to drive out the evil spirit.

Generations ago, two fakirs of the Mohammedan order of Kadiree started on a pilgrimage to Baghdad from their own village in North-west India, situated in the district of Jounpore, which lies between Benares and the territory of Oudh. Jhe founder of their sect, Abdul Kadir, is buried at Baghgad, and around his mausoleum the tombs of so many mystical sheikhs have been placed, that Baghdad itself has sometimes being called the "City of the Saints." On their return journey from the shrine, which they are said to have performed backwards, the fakirs brought with them two bricks which had formed part of it, as sacred memorials, and perhaps also as testimony that they had reached the place of their destination. There was a propriety in bringing bricks, because they are associated with Abdul Kadir's fame as a saint; for on one occasion when he was praying the devil appeared to him disguised as an angel of light, and told him that, on account of his great piety, God would henceforth absolve him from the necessity of prayer; but Abdul Kadir was not to be deceived, and without hesitation began hurling bricks at the deceitful visitant, under which treatment he presently disappeared, and the temptation was thus got rid of.

The fakirs deposited the bricks near their own village, and built a cupola over them. The shrine is called Ghouspore, and the bricks are shown to this day, and are objects of veneration.

An annual fair is held at the place, on the day of the death of Abdul Kadir, but as it is fixed by the Mohammedan calendar, and the Mohammedan year is a lunar one, the commemoration goes round through all the seasons. A large concourse of people always assembles, and the speciality of the occasion is the exorcism of evil spirits; in other words, the empirical cure of hysterical persons. Sacrifices are performed before the shrine by Mohammedans; and the Hindoos, who have an Athenian catholicity in their respect for all gods, known or unknown, cast flowers there or offer sweetmeats 