MODERN WITCHCRAFT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13325, 3 November 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

MODERN WITCHCRAFT.

EXTRAORDINARY STORIES OF MYSTIC RITES. Ax amazing story of modern witchcraft as practised on ignorant, credulous foreigners in the East End was related to a jury hefore Mr. Chester Jones at the Clerkenwell Sessions recently A Russian woman, named Rachel Neuhaus, 40 years of age, was indicted for having obtained by false pretences £5 14s from Mis. Aunie Samuels, and £25 from Rosie Silberberg. Mr. Slade Butler, the prosecuting counsel, told the jury that the evidence was of a most extraordinary character, and it made one doubt whether we lived in the twentieth century. The allegations carried one back to the days when Witchcraft was rife in the country. Strange and ridiculous as it-all was he asked the jury to believe the witnesses. Annie Samuels, a charwoman, of Bruns-wick-street. St. George's, 'giving her evidence in Yiddish through the interpreter, Mr. Nyberg, said her husband deserted her a year and nine months ago. Recently the prisoner called on her and asked if she would like her fortune told for threepence. She laid out some cards, and apparently reading them remarked. "Your husband has deserted you. 1 have power to bring him back again. (Jive me 2s 6d. I can relieve you of all your troubles and restore your husband so that you will have to work hard no longer." Witness believed her and paid the money. Next day the prisoner asked her for Is 6d for candles which, being burnt in a peculiar way with pins stuck all round them —would attract the husband to his home again. On another occasion she made mysterious passes with her hands over the "fire, on which she had carefully deposited a red brick. But the husband did not return, and the prisoner explained, " I must have more money. The more you give me the quicker I shall, bring him home." (Laughter.) Witness paid £5 14s in all. Then the prisoner insisted on having a nightdress, some sheets, and pillow-cases. These she was going to prepare with a secret process, so that one night witness would wake up to find her husband by her side. He would be wearing the nightdress, and the. pillowcases would have been treated with something which had the wonderful power of preventing her husband ever running away again. (Loud laughter.) Mr. Slade Butler: After all this did your husband come back? Witness: No, sir. In answer to Mr. W. H. Sands, defening, the witness said she believed the prisoner to be a good witch, who could perform magic. Witness then produced a. capacious bag, out of which she broughtin turn a. medicine bottle containing a magic fluid for sprinkling about the room, a paper packet containing some clippings from the back of a. black eat —(laughter)— some sealing wax, and some pins which witness used to sew into her chemise. (Laughter.) All these things were supposed to be necessary to restore her husband. Mr. Chester Jones (laughing heartily) : This is the funniest case I have ever bad before me. Fanny Samuels, the witness' daughter, corroborated her mother, and added that the prisoner provided powders and uttered mysterious words to call her father back. Mr. Chester Jones: A sort of incantation, I suppose? Mr. Sands (examining witness) : Did you see the performance with the black cat? Witness: Yes, and she threw something into the fire. It came out with a squeak. I had a fright, and I ran away. (Laughter.) Did she put the cat in the fire?—l can't say what she did with the cat. Something was put on the fire. Did the black cat frighten you?— The squeak did. (Laughter.) You thought the prisoner a good -witch? —Yes. She showed us such miracles that she made us believe her. She produced a lot of Russian gold, handfuls, from her bosom and said, "I don't want your money. See, I have plenty of my own. All will be returned when I have finished my work : but if you do not give me what I want I have the power to stop your husband from ever coming back."' ' ' / """•• ■' j~, Rosie Silberberg, a young Russian servant, of Berner-street, Commercial Road, said the prisoner introduced herself as a magician, and spreading out the cards exclaimed, " You have got a young man in Russia. Would you like that I should bring him over to England?*' Witness asked. "How much will that cost?" and the prisoner said half a sovereign. Witness, however, parted with £25 in all for the purpose, but her lover never arrived. The prisoner gave her two curious powders, with instructions, that they were to be placed on the end of a hairpin and consinned in flame. The experiment was to show the man's love for witness. (Laughter.) The interpreter put other questions, and the answer threw him into a fit' of convulsive laughter. It was an infectious laugh, and the jury and the Bar joined in, and even the judge laughed heartily. Mr. Chester Jones solemnly tried to restrain himself, and tried to smother his merriment bv covering his face with his handkerchief. But he burst out louder than ever, and the whole court sat laughing itself into tears. Eventually the interpreter announced that witness was told by prisoner that she must get nine eggs. The prisoner would then write on them, and they must be burned in the fire. Witness then produced a common rusty padlock, which the prisoner had said was an emblem of her lover's true love. (Laughter.) Detective-Sergeant Leeson having proved the prisoner's arrest, her counsel argued that the story was too good to be true. Mr. Chester Jones said the case disclosed an amount of human credulity that one would have believed impossible. The jury found the prisoner guilty. Detective-Sergeant Leeson said during the five months she had been in London she had accumulated a large sum of money by these practices, about which there were many complaints. She was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, and certified for deportation.