Note 9 — A SURVIVAL OF MEDIÆVAL CREDULITY.

The manner in which The Pelican makes piety profitable is most extraordinary and should win the admiration and excite the envy of the "yellow press." The editor informs the public that he entered into a compact with St. Joseph, promising to distribute fifty books in which this holy person is glorified, provided the journal receives two thousand subscribers. In less than a year the number of subscribers was twenty-five hundred. A promise to distribute one hundred books of this kind, if St. Joseph would procure eight thousand subscribers, raised the list of subscribers to twelve thousand; and this barter went on until The Pelican could boast of ninety thousand subscribers. The editor also announces that he has engaged two hundred and eighty priests to say masses for the readers of his paper and to pray for and bless their children, and concludes this astounding piece of puffery as follows: "Experience teaches us that the benediction of a single priest is effective. What, then, can not be obtained if two hundred and eighty priests unite in blessing us!"