The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-05-31

thereof to ye Court, and further it ia or
dered vt. som women be requested to shift
her d serch her before she goe into ye water
vt; she carry nothing about her to cause
any further serspicion."
The court went in boats and berlins to
all present, she swan the waves of Lynha-
ven bay and was then taken to Jail and
placed in irons-'tob be brought to a future
tryall there"
The stories of modern witches are
legion; and they are much more tangible
pictures than those of Queen Anne's reign.
Albert Lynch. = respectable and reliable?
colored man, tells of a night in a lonely old
feld school house, where a witch held an
orgy over his body and called in her as
s%istance q queer and curious community of
unknown creatures that danced by the
light of fox fire.. and at the first roulade
from the chandelier, the witch and her
retinue skedaddled up the wide old chimney
mouth! We can explain this by calling it a
dream, or the workings of q restless, I'M
disciplined brain.
But how can We explain the fact that in
one district a woman declares the witch OF
another won't allow her butter to come"
or her life in other channel to run smooth
ly2 How explain the fact that a witch de-
clares certain things will happen and a year
later they do happen?
Witches can nearly always name the cob
thief Of e neighborhood! They can trace
anything stolen from a dull axe to a gold
ring. In early life they have, so far as loan
learn, been subject to erileptic fits.
That a woman of this kind has a strange
influence over her fellow men, ignorant,
unlettered, undisciplined though they be,
cannot be denied any more than it can be
explained. She grows up with the power.
She makes prophecies and they are verified.
Sometimes she is dubbed crazy quite early
in life and the stigma clings to her.
Ann Hotel. formerly Ann Croft, has
been a famous character in the county for
thirty years. She is still a young woman.
her from birth by a witch mother. She has
epileptio fits, talks with a drawl and a nasal
whine, and emphasizes her words in a pc
culiar anner.
She was a casper's daughter, born in
this county-Boteturt-and as a girl worked
in the family of one very respectable it not
learned. old gentleman-Moore by name.
The substantial, implanted old Dutch
house, fillsd with curious old books and
furniture, among which were German black
letter volumes and a valuable hall clock
with chimes-proved a temptlnR home to
| the house girl, Annie Croft. So, in the
hope OF retaining it during her natural life
| she bewitched Mrs. Moore-so the story
! coes-and in a short time married the gray
| old man, then about 60 years of age.
She was at the time about 10.
Her famo as a fortune teller ana WITCH
WAS then wonderful.
Her enemies said that she inflicted the
troubles she foretold: her friends that she
| was a surprising medium through which
| the future revealed itself. She undoubtedly
hit the truth in many instances. For cx-
ample. she happened to be at n lady's house
in her travels, and upon opening her book
declared that Il coffin appeared between her
lines. Her nearer WAS vlsibly affected be-
cause one of her sons was away at war.
Mo- said Ann, divining her thoughts,
| she will not die in battle. He will choke to
DEATH"
There was but one way to do this, so
thought his mother. He would be captured
and hung rs n spy.
Despite the dictates of her reason, she
grieyed for her son. A month later she
heard that he had died in a southern hos
pital of diphtheria!
They say this is only one of Il thousand
instances that have verified her predictions.
For my own part, l could never remember
the fortune she rehearsed for my benefit.
When she struck n truth in past events
was not surprised, because hore. as in all
small towns, everybodv's past il his neigh
boris to remember; and l felt sure some one
had talked to her before her visits to me.
She is still i'll great demand rs a fortune
teller, chiefly for amusement, with the
young. She is very lavish with her lover
for all who seek them, and many q quartz
tinds it's way into her pocket.
But she seems to bs Il real oracle for q
certain class who seek her whenever thel
lose nh article, n she invariably discover
it for them. A poor man lost his coat. Ii,
could lily afford such II loss, for he had NJ
other. All through the summer it wal
searched for, and when fall CAM aud b,