HOLMES COUNTY REPUBLICAN — FEBRUARY 26, 1874
Among the horrible superstitions which still exist in some parts of the world, that of the vampire is one of the worst. A recent lawsuit in Germany has shown that this weird belief still exists, notwithstanding the boasted enlightment of this nineteenth century.
On the 5th of February, 1870, there died at Kantzyno, a village in Western Prussia, of consump tion, a respectable gentleman named Francis Van Poblocki, sixty-three years of age. A few days after his funeral his eldest son, Anton, was taken sick and died on the 18th of the same month. According to the physician, his disease was known as “galloping consumption.”
Almost at the same time this man’s wife and a young daughter were taken sick; a second son and a brother-in-law felt very unwell, and all these persons complained of feeling indescrible anxiety and oppression.
The superstitious notion was now adopted by the family, that the dead father was a so-called vampire, and that they must all die if help were not at once obtained. A vampire is supposed to be a body which continues to live in the grave, rising therefrom by night to suck the precious life-blood from living persons, especially its own relatives, and thus to nourish itself and prevent the usual decay.
The persons attacked, it is said sometimes feel themselves in a dream caught by the neck and almost
