The inquest held at Everdon, near Daventry, on Tuesday, on
a governess, the daughter of a local farmer, revealed the existence of hereditary superstition accentuated by the study of palmistry. A letter from the girl to a school friend, dis- covered after her death, made it evident that her mind had been unhinged, and that she had ultimately been driven to suicide by the conviction that she was a "Saturn girl," pre- destined to death by the peculiarity of her "fate line," and that sooner than submit to the ruling of the planets she had resolved to drown herself. It further appeared that the girl's father had ordered one of his labourers to put quicksilver in a penny loaf and throw it into the pond where the girl was supposed to have drowned herself, in the belief that it would indicate the whereabouts of the body. The coroner com- mented on the absurdity of the belief. He might have availed himself of the occasion to offer some salutary remarks on the baneful influence exerted on weak and susceptible minds by the mercenary charlatans encouraged by fashionable society, who boldly ply their trade in our midst, and advertise their arts in the daily papers, while the gipsies who tell fortunes for sixpences in the country are rigorously harried by vigilant rural constables.
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