United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The most remarkable and certain characteristic of the Saturnine man is that, as an old author observes 'he will never look thee in the face. 'If they have to love any one, these Saturnines, says another old author, 'they love most constantly; and if they hate, they hate to the death. The persons signified symbolically by Saturn are grandparents, and other old persons, day labourers, paupers, beggars, clowns, husbandmen of the meaner sort, and especially undertakers, sextons, and gravediggers.
From time to time, one of the sextons, almost always a male, comes out and walks round the animal, which he explores, probing its velvet coat. He hurriedly returns, appears again, once more investigates and creeps back under the corpse. The tremors become more pronounced; the carcase oscillates, while a cushion of sand, pushed out from below, grows up all around it.
For three or four days she had no sustenance but water; nor did her child share any better for nine days. During this time it was constantly in her arms or lap. At the end of that period, the frost of death crept into its eyes, and she was forced to relinquish it to be disposed of by the unfeeling sextons of the forest. She went through almost every suffering but death.
They said that the sacraments could not be effectually administered by the constitutional priests, whom they called Intruders, and that every one attending their ministrations became by their presence guilty of a mortal sin; that those who were married by Intruders, were not married; that they brought a curse upon themselves and upon their children; that no one should have communication with them, or with those separated from the church; that the municipal officers who installed them, like them became apostates; that the moment of their installation all bell-ringers and sextons ought to resign their situations.... These fanatical addresses produced the effect which the bishops expected.
A number of Marabou storks had also arrived, and were standing proudly among the crowd of vultures, preparing to perform the duty of sextons, when the skin should become sufficiently decomposed. Throughout all the countries that I had traversed, these birds were in enormous numbers.
The entire work of excavation is performed at a distance, under the body, whose shoulders are lying on the ground. Here and here only a hole is dug to receive the front of the body, the part accessible to the sextons. A difference of an inch in the position of the suspended animal destroys the famous legend.
If Egyptian amulets and mummies had such terrible powers, you may be very sure that the modern Arabs, who are the most superstitious people in the world, would not touch the work, and the ancient sextons or guardians of the tombs, who were even more superstitious, wouldn't have dared to disturb the last slumber of a lately-buried Pharaoh.
Lawyers and physicians, photographers and grocers, speculators and sextons, judges and schoolmasters, schoolboys and barkeepers all who were burghers locked their desks and offices and journeyed to the front. Even clergymen closed their houses of worship in the towns and remained among the commandos to pray and preach for those who did the fighting.
Now when I say that the parish officers did not give in a full account, or were not to be depended upon for their account, let any one but consider how men could be exact in such a time of dreadful distress, and when many of them were taken sick themselves and perhaps died in the very time when their accounts were to be given in; I mean the parish clerks, besides inferior officers; for though these poor men ventured at all hazards, yet they were far from being exempt from the common calamity, especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had, within the year, 116 sextons, gravediggers, and their assistants; that is to say, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of carts for carrying off the dead bodies.
Paul's College of Physicians Undertakers, sextons, &c., almost ruined Industry of the apothecaries. This famous sling makes the possessor equal to any task he is desirous of performing.
Word Of The Day