15 JULY 1899, Page 15

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") Sin—In connection with this

discussion, it may interest your readers to see this note of Sir Richard Barton's on the sup- posed effects of the moon's rays :—" The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.:—Psalm cxxi. 6. Easterns still believe in the blighting effects of the moon's rays, which the Northerners of Europe, who view it under different con- ditions, are pleased to deny. I have seen a hale and hearty Arab, after sitting an hour in the moonlight, look like a man fresh from a sick-bed; and I knew an Englishman in India whose face was temporarily paralysed by sleeping with it exposed to the moon."—Burton's "Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night," Vol. II. p. 4.—I am, Sir, &c., G.