ut to the success of the weird ceremonial prescribed by the
fortune-teller.

A remarkable case of credulity came before Ludlow police court, in
January of this year (1879). Mary A. Collier was summoned under the
local bye-laws for using abusive language to Elizabeth Oliver. Both
parties, it transpired, lived in Lower Gouldford; and a sheet having
been lost off a garden line, with a view to discover the thief, the
superstitious practice of "turning the key and the Bible" was resorted
to. Complainant said Collier met her in the street, and said the Bible
had been turned down for Jones' yard, Martha Cad's yard, and
Burnsnell's yard, and when Mrs. Oliver's name was mentioned, "the
Bible fled out of their hands." The Bible was then turned to see if
the sheet was stolen during the day or night, and Mrs. Collier then
called her "a daring daylight thief." Mrs. Collier informed the Court
that "the key turned for Mrs. Oliver and no one else, and the words in
the Bible were for her." Mrs. Oliver said the sheet had been found
under the snow. The Bench dismissed the case, and said such gross
superstition was more like a relic of the past, and would not have
believed that such a thing existed in this advanced age.

In the village of East Knighton, Dorsetshire, in the year above
mentioned, a remarkable case reached the public ears. In a cottage
dwelt a woman named Kerley and her daughter, a girl of about eighteen
years, supposed to be bewitched. It was positively stated that they
had been thrown out of the cottage into the street, although neither
window nor door was open, and heavy articles of furniture were sent
flying about in all directions.

An old woman called Burt was named as the cause of all the mischief,
and she was declared to have assumed the form of a hare, to have been
chased by the neighbours, and then to have sat up and looked defiantly
at them. It is positively believed that until blood is drawn from the
witch the manifestations will not cease.

We must confess that superstition is stripped of its romance by
prosaic courts and stern judges. A case tried at Newbury
quarter-sessions is fresh in the memory of many. Maria Giles, _alias_
"The Ranter," well known as the "Newbury Cunning Woman," was tried on
the charge of having obtained sums of money from two women living at
villages in a wild district in North Hants, by falsely pretending she
had the power to recover some goods they had lost. The women travelled
twelv