The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1882-02-15
THE SUPERNATURAL.


Countries.
People are only too apt to believe
that witcbcraft has become an exploded
article of the popular creed, and that
there are no classes holding to the faith
professed by Raleigh and Bacon, Selden
and Hobbs, Boyle and Moore, Sir
Thomas Browne and Sir Matthew Hale.
Yet there would not be the slightest
difficulty experienced by any one whose
reading includes q moderately large
list of daily newspapers, domestic and
foreign, in compiling a very respectable
annual volume on contemporary witch
craft and proving that belief in the
supernatural and malignant attrib-
utes of crazy old crones, in the vampire
tastes of unquiet corpses, and in the po.
tency of charms and spells, is to-day
entertained by millions Of people in
thu most civilized countries of the
world. They had an epidemic of witch
craft in Butler, Pa, few months ago,
when the fact was revealed that there
we're six professional "witch-masters" in
the county, and that when the devil
got possession of man and was not
disturbed in his tendency for two
months, So was the smallest sum for
which he could be evicted. The modus
operandi is to cut circle on white
oak tree and lure the devil to enter it,
which he does with noise like thunder
and q vehemence that splits the tree to
splinters. The patient is then corked
up, as it were, with prayers and charms.
It is only little while since the
Davenport Ia, papers chronicled the
death of Mary the Witch, and gave an
appetizing inventory of her professional
possessions, her "cabinet" F." containing
2 cats skull, a chickens head, bats
wings, toads' feet, spiders webs, vari-
GUS bones of various animals, dried
blood and eyes of owls and cats de-
posted in various places wrapped in
paper. It is safe to say that the pro-
fessors of witchcraft in the United
States are numbered by hundreds and de-
rive an annual revenue from the credu-
lous which it would take at least seven
figures to express.
Though witchcraft is not so public
and profitable business in England,
the belief in witches is even more gen
ernlly held. Within the last few weeks
one case has been reported where the
parson of the parish was appealed to to
cut sod from the alleged witch's grave
to stop her nightly promenades for evil
purposes, and two young men were
brought before the courts for knocking
down an old woman and drawing
blood" from her with knife, so as to
release their sister from her spells. At
Sheffield, in November, 1880, Agnes
Johnstone was sent to Jail for three
weeks for obtaining 95 IS. from Mar
garet Devaney, through a promise Of
6 ruling her planet" and bringing her
fortune through the agency of sub
,, terranean spirits. The witch had, her
, dupe testified, danced with the fairies
and worked with the devil for night af-
ter night At East Dereham, one Will
: liam BulWer was fined for abusing and
, assaulting a girl named Christiana
Martins, because she was part
, ner in the witch industry with
her mother, his testimony being
as follows: "Mrs. Martins is an old
witch and she charmed me, and gotd
no sleep for her for three nights, and
: one night at 11:30 o'clock got up be-
!, cause could not sleep, and went out
a and found a walking toad under a
9 clod that had been dug up with three
pronged fork. That is why could not
rest. She is a bad old woman. She
i put the toad under there to charm me,
: and her daughter is Just as bad, gentle
: men. She would bewitch any one.
r She charmed me, and got no rest day
V or night for her till found this walk
ing toad under the turf. got the
- toad out and put it under cloth and
took it upstairs and showed it to my
| fvahr he IN
the garden. can bring it and show it
d to you, gentlemen" In Dudley, in
Q June last, professional witch came to
grief and the Jail for selling ''a bottle
/ of stuff to burn at midnight" to q
e woman who, though admitting that this
I practitioner was a fraud, insisted that
she herself was bewitched.
" The London Daily NeiOs is authority
for the statement that "to-day in Eng.
d land women of bad temper and a GER
a tain originality of character deliberate
+ ly give themselves out to be witches.
They win some respect and exercise
IS some influence. One woman has at this
n moment a reputation for keeping seven
little familiar spirits, which leap ont OF
her mouth, like the red mouse from the
lips of the fair witch in Faust
J. witch often lowers the rent of the ada
k cent cottages and demoralizes a whole
e neighborhood."
J. The last legal execution in England
e for witchcraft occurred in 1716, but in
" 1868 reputed wizard was drowned il
2 a pond at the village of Heddingham
! in Essex, not forty miles from London
Is while in 1867 "Dr. Harris" was com
Q mitted for trial at the Radnorshire as
n sizes for duping persons into the belle
d that their ailments were caused by theil
d being witched," and for protesting tC
Ie cure them by giving them charms tC
e wear suspended round their necks.
,o1 Az Havav In RelOium. in luna last