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New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 453, 16 December 1881, Page 5

Accusations of witchcraft and maltreatment of supposed witches by the illiterate country people are still things of frequent occurence in Germany. A recent number of the Danziger Zeitung tells of an incident of this kind in the village of Stangenwalde, where an old lone woman was accused of having bewitched an invalid widow, becaose, as the latter was driving past the other's hut, her horse suddenly came to a stop. This was assumed to be owing to the old woman's occult influence, and to prove that the widow's illness had been caused by her. The old creature frightened out of her senses, was dragged to the widow's bedside, and subjected to various torments to coerce her into expelling the devil from her victim, This mode of procedure faijjinpr, she was compelled to inflict cuts in three of her fingers and permit the widow to euck her blood, after which the invalid immediately began to feel better. It was then proposed to hang the witch and a rope was fastened around her neck, while tbe crowd beat her about the head and face with slippers and shoemakers' lasts. She was finally rescued, but in a dangerously injured condition.