TRIAL BY TOUCH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19349, 9 December 1924, Page 11

TRIAL BY TOUCH.

ANCIENT SUPERSTITION,

The custom of trial by touch was an ancient superstition, although not entirely confined to Scotland. Andrew Siueaton was charged' in 1636 with the murder of a man found dead in Belnalow Moss. At the request of his master, the Laird of Abercairnie, he touched the corpse as the others assembled had done. He even went further and “lifted him up and embraced him in his arms, and willingly offered to remain a fpace in grave with him.” As no blood followed on this contact, he was held innocent, and no doubt he. was. In 1644 four men were drowned by the upsetting of their boat in a calm. Marion P'eebles, a noted witch, was charged with having changed herself into a porpoise, and under this form to have wrecked the boat. Conclusive proof was obtained when at her touch “one bled at the collar-bone, another in the hand and fingers.” Another noted witch, Christiane Wilson, quarrelled with her brother. One day in 1661 he was found dead in his own house, naked, and with a bloodless’blow” on his face. Christiane was suspected. The baillio and ministers haleS her to the dead man’s house. As she touched the corpse the blood gushed out, staining her fingers. She was condemned.