lost their reason. A score or five hundred coincidences of this kind are not sufficient to lay the foundation for a law.
The prediction of Zadkiel that earthquakes would occur in the 77th degree of west longitude, followed immediately by the earthquakes in this country, appears at first sight very remarkable. Yet to read all the predictions in Zadkiel's Almanac for 1886 and compare them with subsequent events is sufficient to dissipate belief that there was a foreseeing of those events. The Almanac for 1886 predicted for England that an effort would be made to abolish hereditary peerages; that the revenue would not be satisfactory; that theaters would suffer; that the schoolboard would be in bad odor, and that certain of its members would find their chances of reëlection very perilous; that some public buildings would be destroyed in Paris by fire; that German affairs would become entangled; that socialistic proceedings would cause trouble (a thing that has been true for several years, and no more true during 1886 and 1887 than it had been). An astounding prediction was made that there would be "some trouble in the Western States and a good deal of sickness, and that the President would find his office a burdensome one." The financial condition of Mexico was to be bad. In Australia there would be trouble connected with railroads, and serious accidents were only too probable. There would be a great outbreak of epidemic diseases, and naval forces would be increased. In Ottawa the Canadian government would find it difficult to maintain peace at home and abroad; and in Paris the Communists would resort to violence and the streets would be stained with blood. There is scarcely a fulfilment transcending the results of ordinary sagacity in conjecturing future events.
