her
apron, and there, sure enough, was a cross. Clothes that had been
folded up and put away in presses, came out with the sacred sign upon
them. One day during the singing of the mass thirty men suddenly found
themselves marked with crosses. They lasted for nine or ten days, and
then gradually faded. It was afterwards remarked that where the
crosses had been, the plague followed. Such is Trithemius' account in
his chronicle: we may wonder how closely he had questioned his
informants.

It is difficult for us to conceive a world in which news spreads
mainly by word of mouth. Morning and evening it is poured forth to us,
by many different agencies, in the daily press; and though many of
these succumb to the temptation to be sensational, among the better
sort there is a healthy rivalry which restrains exuberance and
promotes accuracy. There is safety, too, in numbers. News which
appears in one paper only, is looked at doubtfully until it is
confirmed by the rest; but even unanimity amongst all papers will
scarcely at first win acceptance for what is at all startling and out
of the common, until time and the absence of contradiction may perhaps
corroborate. In practice men of credit have learnt not to see the
sea-serpent. For a picture of conditions in the sixteenth century we
must sweep all the newspapers away. Kings had their heralds and towns
their public messengers who took and of course brought back news.
Caravans of merchants travelled along the great trade-routes; and
their tongues and ears were not idle. Private persons, too, sent their
servants on journeys to carry letters. But even so news had to travel
by word of mouth; for even when letters were sent, we may be sure that
any public news of importance beneath the seals and wafers had reached
the bearers also.

But for what they told confirmation was not to be had for the asking.
Not till chance brought further messengers was it possible to
establish or contradict, and till then the first news held the field.
Rumour stalked gigantic over the earth, often spreading falsehood and
capturing belief, rarely, as in Indian bazars to-day, with mysterious
swiftness forestalling the truth. In such a world caution seems the
prime necessity; but men grow tired of caution when events are moving
fast and the air is full of 'flying tales'. The general tendency was
for them, if not to believe, at any rate to pass on, unverified
reports, from the impossibility of reaching cert