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

witchcraft, putrid infections and sudden
DEATH" " Whose beareth this sign need
fear no foe;' This is a sign against
witchcraft, and suicide, and evil de-
mons" The foolish man lent willing
ear to all this; and, as he had saved a
little money, he became welcome dupe
to the wise woman, who tieeced him to
the extent of more than four pounds. AS
his wife became more "ill-wish'd" than
ever, or at any rate more paralyzed, his
eyes were opened a little; he told his
grievances to a magistrate, and impris-
onment with hard labor was allotted to
the wise woman.
In the fashionable town of Tunbridge
Wells, a married woman, touched with
Jealousy, went, in 1868, to ascertain
whether a fortune-teller could confirm
her suspicious The fortune-te teller, an
Oldham, repliedin the affirmative, and I'M
dertOok TO bewitCh the other woman"
by burning certain chemical; and money
was given to him to buy the chemical.
The wife, on returning home, and being
attacked with rather sudden and severe
pains, suspected that the man had be-
witched her instead of the other woman.
This absurd idea led to a charge being
brought against the man for wrongly be-
witching, but the magistrates resolved it
simply into a case of obtaining money
under false pretense, and punished him
accordingly.
The same year presented an incident
at Newbury, strikingly illustrating the
prOverb that " a fool and his money are
soon parted" A countryman lost his
watch, and consulted a cunning wom-
an" about it. She undertook, for fee
of twelve shillings, to show him in a
glass the man who possessed the watch.
On the silly noodle giving her the money,
she brought sort of bird-cage glass,
and requested him to look in it; he did
SO, and "saw something that looked like
a mans whskers, but no face" He paid
a second visit, and gave her money to
buy some stuff" at chemists. The
cunning woman" went to his house the
next day, took tea with him, told him
that the person who had the watch was
very hard hearted, and demanded nine
or ten shillings wherewith to buy some
more stuff" Another day came, and
with it a demand for more money, which
the dupe gave, and so on until forty-tive
shilhngs in all had been thus transferred.
All the instructions she gave him was to
keep at home till midnight, when the
man who had the watch would bring it."
Of course the watch never made its APP
pearance, and the only consolation for
the Berkshire man was to get the cum
ming woman" punished for fraud.
A married woman at CuCktield, in Sus-
sex, being affected with some malady
which her friends could not understand,
imputed it to witchcraft. A cunning
man" who had a book of necromancy,"
was consulted. His book told him that
charm must be tried at midnight pre-
ceding the Sabbath, the planets being
favorable. The cunning man and the
friends of the sick woman met secretly,
provided with some new pins, which
were stuck in certain positions; some
thing was burned, jargon was read out
of the book, CALCULATIONS uttered in a
commanding tone, in the expectation
that an invisible witch would be driven
up the chimney. Prying neighbors,
however, spoiled the charm, and the
woman's illness had to be attended to
by medical practitioner
A mixture of witch credulity and spir-
itualistic credulity showed itself in a
singular way in an advertisement which
appeared in one OF the journals devoted
to that class of subjects "a gentle
man, beng bewitched by hired man
witch in his neignborhOod, hired and
avowedly paid during thirty-fve years a
fixed sum of money yearly by miscreants
for his criminal services, would be glad
to meet with any medium who might be
able, by spectral sight, by clairvoyance,
or by trance, to afford such clew as might
identify the said man witch" Poor
gentleman. his mind was evidently
thrown off its balance by some one of
the brain diseases which now occupy so
much of the attention of thoughtful
physicians.
A delusion, at once sad and ludicrous,
took hold of a Devonshire youth few
years ago. He was subject occasionally
to epileptic fits, and anXiously sought for
preservation from his malady. On one
occasion he was known to stand outside
thC pdllSh ChulCA anu COllCCG d
each from thirty unmarried women,
wherewith to purchase ring to wear as
charm against fits!
In 1870, a woman IN Barnstaple market
place was suddenly attacked by an old
man, who scratched her with needle,
drew blood, and exclaimed: "You have
had power over me long enough, and
now | will be revenged" The aid of
magistrate being obtained, the old man
declared that he had suffered affiiction
through her for four years, that he had
had four complaints upon him at once,
that he had lost fourteen canaries and
about fifty goldtincbes, and more than
100 persons" had told him that he would
get rid of all his troubles if he could
only "fetch" the blood out of the old
woman. He was rather Disconnected at
being punished for adopting this singu-
lar mode of Disseminating himself.
The belief in mysterious power at
tributed to corpse by some old super
stitions is almost incredible. At Bewdly,
in the year just named, man was found
drowned in the Severn. When the in
quest was over, a woman came, bringing
with her a boy afflicted with many I'M
slightly wens on the neck. She begged
permission to draw the boys hand nine
times over the deceased mans throat, in