Blood Stains

To the present day the superstition is rife that blood stains cannot be washed out. During the French revolution 80 priests were massacred in the Carmelite chapel at Paris, and the stains, so called, of their blood are pointed out today; Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of a Grandfather, " declares that the blood stains of David Rizzio, the Italian private secretary of Mary, queen of Scots, who was stabbed at Holyrood palace by certain Protestant leaders of her court, aided by her husband, Darnley, are stil! to be seen. In Lancashire the natives show a stone called the "bloody stoue, " which was so marked to show heaven's displeasure at some of Cromwell's soldiers' atrocities at Gallows Croft. In "Macbeth, " act 5, scène 1, Shakespeare alludes to the idea, "Yet here's a spot. " The truth is blood caunot be easily expunged. In the flrst place, if that of a murdered persou, it is nót attempted. In the next place, blood contains oxide of iron, which sinks deep into the fiber of wood and proves indelible to ordinary washing. Thus it is trne that stones of a porous nature and wood not of the hardest kind are susceptible to the staiu of blood produced by the oxide of iron which the blood contains. But the blood of a piff is as eood as that of a murdereci man.