twelve women at her house and got them
all to solemnly bless the cow; but still no
milk came. She then applied to one Mary
Butters, a fortune-teller. This woman
advised that the tailor and another man
should go to the cow-house, turn their
waistcoats inside out, and stand by the
head of the cow till the milk came. The
two simpletons did as they were directed,
and remained in the cow-house many hours;
but as the cow continued as dry as ever
they returned to the house. Finding doors
and windows closed, and observing a strange
silence everywhere, they forced an entrance,
and saw within the house the tailor's wife,
her son, and an old woman, all lying dead,
together with Mary Butters in a very
exhausted state. In this case there is reason
to believe that the witch, or fortune-teller,
was to a certain degree sincere in her
witchery; she had shut herself up in the
house with the three other persons, had
closed every crevice, and put a pot on the
fire containing pins, needles, crooked nails,
a little milk, and (it is supposed) a little
sulphur. The fumes had suffocated her
wretched companions, and had nearly made
an end of herself too.

An inquiry that came before the Bethnal-green
Police Court, in 1856, exhibited the
metropolis in nearly as unfavourable a light
as the country districts. The wife of a
coppersmith, suffering under illness and
anxiety, was told by some of her neighbours
that she had a "spell" upon her, and was
recommended to go to a "wise woman"
named Sarah M'Donald; seeing that a
medical man had failed to cure her. The
wise woman told her that "some person was
doing her an injury," and that the remedy
would be the burning of ten powders. The
dupe purchased the powders, at sixpence
each, of M'Donald, who threw them into the
fire, where they "cracked, and burned, and
blazed, and bounced." The wise woman
muttered some words, which were supposed
to be part of a charm or incantation. The
silly wife repeated these visits seven or
eight times, always unknown to her
husband. It came out in the course of the
investigation that the magic powder was only
common salt; but, even then, the dupes (for
the woman's daughter had also fallen into
the snare) believed that the wise woman
could "remove the spell" if she chose:
indeed, the complaint before the magistrate
was, not that she had done wrong, but that
she would not do what she could. The
credulity was rendered the more strange by
the fact that the tradesman's wife belonged
to a good family, moving in a circle of
society where the witch theory is not
usually countenanced.

In 1825 a curious proof was afforded of
the popular belief in a "sink-or-swim"
method of detecting a wizard. At
Wickham Keith, in Suffolk, there dwelt one
Isaac Stebbing, a small, spare, elderly man;
he was a huckster, or dealer in small cheap
wares. Near him dwelt a thatcher, whose
wife became more and more silly as she
advanced in years; while another neighbour,
a farmer, also showed signs of mental
weakness. The gossips of the village
deeming it strange that there should be two
silly persons among them, took refuge in
the theory of witchcraft or necromancy,
and sought about for some one who had
done the mischief. The poor huckster
was fixed upon. One cottager asserted
that, while using the frying-pan one
evening, Isaac Stebbing was seen to
dance up to the door. This, it seems, is
one of the tests of wizard tactics; but
Stebbing stoutly denied having done
anything of the kind. Thereupon rose a
charge that he had once called upon a
neighbour with mackerel for sale, at four
o'clock in the morning, before the family
were up—another proof of black magic;
he admitted having called at the hour
named, but only as a dealer, and denied all
complicity with wizards. Not yet satisfied,
the villagers ascertained from a cobbler
that one day his wax would neither melt
nor work properly, and that Isaac Stebbing
passed his door at the very instant
when this occurred, a sure proof (in the
cobbler's estimation) that the huckster
had bewitched the wax. The villagers,
having their minds preoccupied with the
belief that Stebbing was a wizard, did not
like to be baffled, and proposed that the
sink-or-swim test should be applied. The
poor fellow consented. There was a large
pond called the Grunner, on Wickham-green,
and around this pond, on a certain
day, a strong muster of villagers assembled.
Four men were appointed to walk into the
water with Isaac, and the parish constable
attended to keep the peace. Stebbing,
wearing only his coat and breeches, walked
into the pond, attended by the four men;
and when they had waded about breast
high, they lifted him up and laid him flat
on his back on the surface of the water.
Now it is known to bathers that when the
lungs are moderately inflated, the human
body weighs a little less than an equal
bulk of water; and that a person can at
such a time float on the surface, provided
ho keeps perfectly still. Whether the