EXPLOITS OF A SORCERESS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7446, 22 May 1911, Page 7

EXPLOITS OF A SORCERESS

Extraordinary faith, (says the Paris correspondent of- the "Daily Telegraph") is still reposed by many people of the working class, in town and country in quack doctors, and if these persons profees to have some acquaintance with the occult sciences this confidence is,,rather increased than diminished. A woman who went in foi bone-setting, ami who, moreover, had recourse to empiric devices, has just been arrested in : the Lyons district in connection wtdh the death of a young man who has expired after a short illness. "When the doctor was called in, at the. eleventh hour, he diagnosed pnnexnonia, but he saw that his services oo old be of no avail, as tho case was already too fat advanced. The patient had been in the hands of the so-called sorceress, who had land the body of a oat, which she skinned while it was alive, on his chest, with strict injunctions that it should be kept there as a sovereign remedy. Sometimes she need pigeons, rabbits, and even squirrels, for the same purpose. She preferred squirrels to any other animal, bat in this ■ particular instance. the cat was employed, as it was less expensive. This worthy, as already stated, is now in cu* tody, but it seems to be a rather difficult matter to get up evidence against her, as the peasants are holding back, owing to the wonderful reputation she enjoys among them as an expert in tho noaling art. Her prestige in those parts has been greatly enhanced by the fact that she has never missed an opportunity of proclaiming that some time ago she cured the wile of a physician in practice in one of the chief towns of France of a dreadful malady, and that the lady’s husband., out of gratitude, had initiated her in the secret of dealing effectively with every manner of disease., . The peasant mind was too dull to arrive at the obvious conclusion that, if the doctor was so clever he could have cured his wilfe himself, but, of course, every atom of tho story is pure invention.