The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-07-07


girls to obtain goods from tradesmen in
the town and bring them to her house,
also wearing apparel, promising that she
would send these articles to them when
they reached London. The mother of
one of the silly dupeS detected the fraud
just in time. 1t was only a case of fort
une-telling cheatery, but it shows in how
many forms this stupid credulity mani
tests itself.
In the same year a weil-to do farmer
at Leicester, shrewd man of business,
was troubled with a strange fatality
among his cattle. Believing that they
had been overlooked" by witch, he
applied toa "wise woman" to remove the
spell. Acting on her advice, ne heaped
up pile of fagots around the body of
the animal which had last died, buried
the carcass, and pronounced over il an
incarnation she had provided. A veter-
mary surgeon was also called in. The
remainder of the herd recovered; butt
farmer and his neighbors attributed the
good result to the ''wise woman" rather
than the surgeon.
In 1872 the Dorset magistrates had to
try cunning man" He had under
taken to cure an epileptic idiot boy, and
tleeced the poor parents out of nearly
$50 in eighteen months-partly for sup
posed benefit to the boy, partly to charm
away an evil spirit which the father be-
lieved himself to be haunted with. The
wife was more credulous even than the
husband, and was the chief agent in
holding interviews with the knave and
paying him money.
AT Payhembury, in the neighboring
county of Devon, an instance occurred in
the same year of fatal results flowing
from the depression of spirits consequent
on witch-belief. A young married wom-
an made acquaintance with Ga white
witch" during visit to Taunton. After
her return home she told her husband
and friends that she had been over
looked" by the witch; she became nerv-
ously depressed, and ended her brief
career by drowning herself. We are not
told whether any good results followed
the exhortations of the Coroner to the
jury, to "do their best to disabuse the
minds of their neighbors of this ignorant
superstition"
On one particular Monday morning in
1874, the pitmen at Bedworth colliery,
Warwickshire, obstinately refused to
descend into the pits. They roamed idly
about Bedworth all day, losing a days
wages, and in all probability spending
something additional for drink. The
reason assigned was that the "Seven
Whistlers' had been heard during the
preceding night in the neighborhood, and
that this always presaged some colliery
disaster. Whether these whistlers were
birds, ghosts or imps the pitmen did not
know, nor could they be certain that the
number was exactly seven; but they had
heard the cries, and that was enough.
In recent article on Mysterious
Sounds" we endeavored to show that the
sounds produced by these Ministers"
proceeded from birds flying overhead
during their migrations.
One more example and our budget
shall end Its date is so recent as De-
cember, 1875. One day an aged woman
at Long Compton, Warwickshire, was re-
turning with bread from a bakers shop,
when man ran up to her, and wounded
her so severely in the leg with a hay fork
that she died the next day. The man
had for years entertained belief that
fifteen or sixteen witches in Long Comp
ton, whose names he gave, had be-
witched him and interfered with his
work. The Superintendent of Police
told the Coroner and jury that many of
the villagers believed in witchcraft, and
that the older women were those
on whom the accusations of the be-
witched mostly fell. The misuse or mis-
Interpretation of the Bible is often To-
ticeable in the conduct and half crazy
reasonings of these superstitious folks;
the man pointed to three verses in Lee
viticus and one in the Acts of the Apos-
ties to show that he was justified in kill
ing the poor old woman who lover
looked" him.
Baron Bramwell who tried the prison
er in the case just adverted to, and who
believed that superstition had driven the
man half out of his wits, chopped that
something would lie done to disabuse the
people of belief in witchcraft" Good;
but we fear this improvement will be
tardy unless the intelligent middle class
Gail dCQuIc HlOIt Icdl luuucnCe WIFI Jue
humber and ignorant class than they
seem at present to possess.
The longer the publication of this ar
ticle is deferred, the more numerous zap
parently) would be the available exam
pies of these mingled displays of cred
ulity and roguery. While we are now
writing June, 1876, the country news
papers tell US of case which came be-
fore the magistracy. A young woman
complained that she was overlooked"
by a witch; cunning man" undertook,
for fee of three shillings, to write out
Course" the uttering of which would
kill the witch. The fee was paid; the
curse was written and uttered, but the
witch, somehow, refused to die; and so
the silly girl made public the broken
promise of the cunning man.-ChamberS'
Journal.
History and Uses OF GunpOWder.
Who invented gunpowder?
No one knows. All agree that its COM
position and properties were understood
in remote antiquity. Authentic history
extends but short way into the past,