advertisements; and numbers of letters--some from
Australia, China, and other places abroad, relating to them--were
found at the defendant's house. It appeared that he had been carrying
on a very successful fraud for some time. The magistrate sentenced the
prisoner, under the Vagrant Act, to three months hard labour.

Four men were charged at the Marylebone police court, London, in 1871,
with telling fortunes. They had a place in that district, in which the
police found a magic mirror, cards, nativities, planetary schemes, and
all the paraphernalia of fortune-telling imposition. On the police
going to the house, they found no fewer than thirty or forty young
women in a waiting-room, each having paid a fee. A book was found in
which were entries of the dupes in each week, the numbers varying from
89 to 662. The prisoners were sentenced to three months hard labour.

Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, London, and nearly all the other
cities, towns, and country districts of England continue to have their
fortune-tellers and reputed witches and ghosts. There are still many
believers in the prophecies of Mother Shipton, but none believe more
implicitly in her sayings than the labouring classes of Somerset.
Recently a report, put in circulation in the neighbourhood of Ham
Hill, made them think a great catastrophe was about to occur in that
particular locality. Mother Shipton had predicted that Ham Hill, one
of the great stone quarries of Somerset and a prominent feature in the
landscape for many miles, would be swallowed up on Good Friday. The
collapse of this immense hill was to ensue from a terrible earthquake,
the effect of which would be felt especially in that part of
Somersetshire. One result of this belief was that persons left the
neighbourhood temporarily in order to escape the disaster. Other
people removed their household goods from shelves and cupboards, in
order that they might not be thrown down by the upheaval of the earth;
and in some cases, we are told, people delayed planting and
cultivating their gardens. The residents who believed in the predicted
event said that Yeovil would also be visited at the same time by a
great and disastrous flood. One case was that of a man who delayed
planting his garden with potatoes because he believed there would be a
terrible frost, and that the River Thames would be covered with ice.
This he connected in some way with the Ham Hill affair. Amongst the
labouring classes consi