and
bent? But though the jury could not resist the tremendous weight of all
this evidence, and the judge could not resist the jury, he managed to get
a reprieve which left the people time to cool and reflect, and then he got
a pardon for her--quietly and kindly done. And Colonel Plummer, of
Gilston, took her under his protection, and gave her a small cottage near
his house, where she lived, poor soul, in peace and safety for the end of
her days, doing harm to no one and feared by none. As for Anne Thorne, the
doctor, who had ordered her, as part of his remedy, to wash her hands and
face twice a day in fair water, and who, as another part, had her watched
and sat with by a "lusty young fellow" who asked nothing better, managed
matters so well, that in a short time Anne and her brisk bachelor were
married; and from that time we hear no more of her vomiting crooked pins,
or being tormented with visions of cats wearing Jane Wenham's face, and
speaking with Jane Wenham's voice. But though all the rest got well off
with their frights and follies, no public compensation was given to poor
old Jane for the brutal attacks of the mob upon her, for the hauling and
maiming and scratching and tearing, by which they proved to their own
satisfaction that she was a witch, and deserved only the treatment
accorded to witches.

OUR LATEST.

But if the last officially condemned, Jane was not the last actually
destroyed, for a curious MS. letter to be found in the British Museum
"From Mr. Manning, Dissenting Teacher, at Halstead, in Essex, to John
Morley, Esq., Halstead," gives us a strange garbled account of a reputed
sacrifice; and the sadder and more brutal story of Ruth Osborne follows a
few years after.

"Halstead, August 2, 1732.

"SIR--The narrative which I gave you in relation to witchcraft, and which
you are pleased to lay your commands upon me to repeat, is as
follows:--There was one Master Collett, a smith by trade, of Haveningham,
in the county of Suffolk, who, as 'twas customary with him, assisting the
maide to churne, and not being able (as the phrase is) to make the butter
come, threw a hot iron into the churn, under the notion of witchcraft in
the case, upon which a poore labourer, then employed in carrying of dung
in the yard, cried out in a terrible manner, 'They have killed me, they
have killed me;' still keeping his hand upon his back, intimating where
the pain was, and died upon the spot.

"Mr. Collett, with the