EXPLOITS OF A SORCERESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 81, 26 May 1911, Page 5

EXPLOITS OF A SORCERESS.

fetniordiuary faith (says cho Paws .correspondent of tho “i)a:iy Telo-. '.yap!'.”') ir. still leposal i'.y many pooido of ilia woridng . l.ms 111 toy. n and country in quack doctors, and if those persons profess to have str u> acquaintance with tho occult sciences tipis confidence is ratlicr increased th.au diminislicd. A woman who wont in for bone-setting, and wiio, moreover,' had recourse to empiric devices, has just been arrested in tho Lyon* district in Conner ti:m with tho dentil of a young man who has expired after a short illness. When the doctor was called in. at the eleventh hour, ho diagnosed pneumonia, 1/at lie saw that his services could bo of no avail, as th.c ease was already too far advanced. ■ The patient had been in tho hands of the so-called sorceress, who had laid tno body of a cat, which she skinned while it was alive, on his chest, with strict injunctions that it should bo kept there as a sovereign remedy. Sometimes she used pigeons, rabbits, ird even squirrels, for the same purpose. She preferred squirrels to any other animal, hut in .this particular instance the cat. Was employed, as it was less expensive. This worthy, as already stated, is now in custody, but it seems to be a rather difficult matter to got up evidence against, her, as tlib peasants are holding back, owing 1 1 the womln fnl reputation she enjoys among them as an expert in tho healing art. Her prestige in those parts lias boon greatly enhanced by tho fact that she has pever missed an opportunity of proclaiming that some time ago she cured the wife of a physician in practice in one of tho 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 war; too dull to arrive at the obvious conclusion that, if the doctor was so clever 110 could have cured his wife | himself, but, of course, every atom of S the story is pure invention.