e cat had promised that she should have all she
wanted, save money; but poor Elizabeth Knott did not add that puss had
promised to give them a halter and the gallows at the end of their
revenge: which would have been the only truth in the whole relation. She
killed Laman's cow, she said, because she had been teazed for money due to
him, or rather to his wife. When she was swum, her cat imp came up to her
and sucked upon her breast; so she said, poor raving creature: but when
she was taken out of the water she never saw it more. Palmer also
confessed that once he lay as a toad in the way of a young man he hated,
to get himself hurt. The young man kicked the toad, and Palmer had a sore
shin; but he bewitched the youth, so that he languished for years in woe
and torment. Then is given the list of all the people bedevilled and
bewitched by these two persons, and the account is signed, "Yours,
Misodaimon." Misodaimon would have done better if he could have called
himself Philalethes.

THE WITCH OF WAPPING.

In April, 1652, Joan Peterson, the witch of Wapping, was hanged at Tyburn
in just retribution of her sins. Joan had long had an ugly name in that
mean house of hers on the small island near Shadwell; for she was known to
heal the sick in a manner more suggestive than satisfactory, and she had a
black beast that used to suck her: which every one knew was the art and
function of an imp. That this was true of her who could doubt, for a man
said he had seen it, and it took even less direct testimony than this to
prove a woman a witch. Let the sceptical read the "Country Justice" to see
what subtle threads were strong enough for a witch-halter! One evening a
neighbour woman was watching by the cradle of a child who was strangely
distempered. In jumped a black cat, coming no one knew whence, and stopped
her cradling. This woman, and another watching with her, flung the
fire-fork at the cat, when it vanished as quickly as it had come. In an
hour's time it came again from the other side: one of the women raised her
foot and kicked it; and immediately her foot and leg swelled, and were
very sore and painful. Then, terrified, they called the master of the
house, told him that they could not watch in a place so beset with evil
spirits, and left him and the child to get on as they could. On their way
home they lighted on a baker, who told them that he had just met a big
black cat which had affrighted him so that his hair stood all