CREDULITY IN DEVONSHIRE.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11976, 11 July 1906, Page 4

CREDULITY IN DEVONSHIRE.

Some extraordinary revelations of credulity still existing in rural parts of Devonshire are supplied by a correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle. >5 For whooping cough, for instance^ there are several remedies not known to the medical profession. A distracted mother may rush her child through three parishes in a day, or take it to be treated by a woman who has not changed the first letter of her name after marriage, of give it a long, hairy caterpillar to wear in a pad round its neck, or place it fa?e downwards where a sheep has been sleeping, while the dew is on the ground. .For this last-named remedy sheep are sometimes driven into the yards over night. The wierdest lemedy for this unpleasant complaint is to take a hair from the child's head, put the hair between slices of bread and butter, and give the sandwich to a dbg ;"if the dog coughs the child will recover. When the little sufferers are not relieved it is said that the parents have not bad sufficient faith. There are caseß on record where mothers have taken their offspring and placed them for a few moments in graves prepared for the reception of a body of the opposite sex, in the belief that they will thereafter not suffer any more from the infirmities that children are heir to. Superstitious Devonian fustics will, when suffering from a cough, go to endless trouble to meet a man driving a white horse, who is asked to suggest a remedy for the affliction. Eating the thorn that causes a wound is still practiced to prevent the wound festering, and portions of a toad are relied to cure sores. Cats play a prominent part in these curious beliefs. A cat may do many thngs, from curing a stye in the eye and forecasting the coming of a stranger, to rendering lucky the unlucky thirteenth person at table by sitting on his knee. Many Devonian housewives will not on any account allbw a kitten to be in the house at the «iame time as a baby, tearing that in such a case harm would come to the infant. In other households kittens born in May are always killed. The reason assigned for this ; harsh proceeding is that "May kittens bring honie the Vermin." Thss means that when they grow up they will not be content with killing rats and mice, but capture and carry ■ home all sorts of nnpelasant creeping things.