WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 88, 8 January 1926, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

A permanent road in Wellington is defined as one that is permanently under repair.

The onlv thing clear about the Battle of Jutland was that the German fleet was in a hurry to get home and never came out again.

The news from Europe is that Holland and France are flooded with real water and Hungary with dummy banknotes.

New South Wales unions are appealing for the reduction of the working week from 44 hours to 40 hours—on the ground, presumably, that work, is still too serious an interference with horse racing.

The unfortunate Abbe of Bombon in France, who is reported in the news to have been flogged by credulous people on the ground of witchcraft,' is not the only person who has suffered on this ’score in recent years. At Cullompton in Devonshire in De-> cember, 1924, a farmer was sent to gaol for a month for assaulting hia neighbour by scratching her on the ami with a pin and then threatening to shoot her. His excuse. was thal she had “ill-wished and bewitched hit pig.” He had therefore tried tc raise the spell bv resorting to the ancient practice of drawing blood from the witch’s arm with a pin. . The man was most emphatically of opinion that both himself and his pig«- were under a spell, and earnestly requested the police to raid the woman’s house and take possession of a crystal' which he said she used in her evil) eraft. The Magistrates tried to persuade the man that there was no such thing as witchcraft nowadays, but he knew better, and so was given month to reflect on the subject.

Trials and executions for witchcraft ceased in France at the end of the eighteenth centurv, and the last English trial was that of Jane Wenham in . 4712, who was convicted but not executed. Massachusetts had a most virulent outbreak of witch-hunting at the end of the seventeenth century, under direction of the Rev. Cotton Slather. This reverend gentleman’s tally of nineteen witches hanged was small, how. ever, besides that of Matthew Hopkins in England, half a century earlier. This Ipswich lawyer gave it out that he had come into possession of the. devil's pocketbool: with a complete list of all witches in England and all consulted of witches. The town councils paid him money for coming and cleaning out the local suspects. The little town of Aide, burgh, in Suffolk, for instance, paid Mr. Hopkins £6 for a visit, and also gave his hangman eleven shillings for eleven Hangings, * * * Hopkins carried on his duties as “Witclifinder-General” for three years, and, according to Mr. J. W. Wickwar’s /event volntng on “Witchcraft and the Black Art,” Xvas responsible in the counties of Essex and Suffolk alone for about 260 indictments, the greater number of which terminated in executions. In the end people tired of him as nobody appeared safe from his accusations. One of his tests for witches was to throw them into a pond. If they sank they were innocent; if they floated, they were witches. Some Essex coun-try-folk with rough justice put the Witchfinder-General to his own test, of “swimming,” and as he didn’t oblige them by drowning as an innocent man they took him out and hanged him as a wizard.

Informal trials for witchcraft continned on in Britain long after the law courts dropped this line of business. About a century back an old woman named Warden, living at Welling, borough, was reputed to be a witch, and sne was hauled to a millpond and thrown in in the presence of a crowd of per. cons. It is said that she swam, but how long she would have continued to float is doubtful, for her. son, arriving home and hearing that his mother had been taken to be ducked for a witch, said, "Witch a devil, she’s my mother and I'll have her,” and arrived in time to save her. She lived for some years after, but was almost universally . re. garded by the populace as a true witch. In Ireland, as recently ns 1895, a wo. man named Bridget Cleary, twenty, seven years of age, was burnt to death as a witch at Baltyvadhen, Tipperary 7 . Long terms of imprisonment, but not any longer than they deserved, .were imposed on those concerned in this affair.

That people could really die because of the fear of witches’ spells is the theme of an interesting chapter in Mr. Wickwar’s book, froniwhich I have quoted. A curious case cited of ability to die at will is that of the Hon. Colonel Townshend, described in Dr. Cheyne s “Hypochondriacal Distempers. Colonel Townshend not only died whenever he liked for half an hour or so at a time, but brought himself gently back to life I This must be true, for Dr. Cheyne was a reliable eighteenth century physician, and his respectability is vouched for more or less by his being a relative of the famous Bishop Burnet. Moreover, the doctor with two other medical men actually saw the thing done.

The Colonel, we are told, was “a gentleman of excellent natural parts, and. of great honour and integrity. One morning he sent for Dr. Cheyne, who had two medical friends on holiday with him, and told them that for some time past he had discovered that composing himself he Could die or expire when he pleased, and yet, by an effort, somehow come to life again. After some demur the doctors consentedl to the colonel trying the feat in their presence. "He composed Himself on liis back,” says Dr. Cheyne, "and lay in a still posture for some time: while I held his right hand Dr. Imd his hand on his heart, and Mr. Sknue held a clean looking-glass to his mouth. I found his pulse sink B rad “ all y> tlB List I could not feel any by the most exact and nice touch. Dr.. Barnard could not feel the least motion in his heart, nor Mr. Skrine the least soil in the bright mirror he held to his mouth.

Not bv the least scrutiny could the three doctors discover any sign of life in the colonel, “All 01 us, continues Dr. Cheyne, “judged, it inexplicable, and finding he still continued in that condition we -began to conclude that lie had indeed carried the experiment too far, and at last were satisfied that he was actually dead and were iust readv to leave him. This continued about half an hour at nine o’clock in the morning in autumn. As we were going away we observed some motion. about the body, and upon examination. found his pulse and the motion of his heart gradually returning; he began to breathe eently and speak softly.” The doctors then left confounded, and puzzled after further conversation with the colonel. At six the same evening the old gentleman died for good. EVOLUTION. Out of the dusk a shadow, Then a spark; Out of the cloud a silence, Then a lark; Out of the heart a rapture, Then a pain ; Out of the dead, cold ashes, Life egaia, —Jobs. Bari’dabtr