alarm and credulity of
their master and mistress, in the first instance, and of the neighbours
and country people afterwards, made their task comparatively easy. A
little common dexterity was all they had used; and, being themselves
unsuspected, they swelled the alarm by the wonderful stories they
invented. It was they who loosened the bricks in the chimneys, and
placed the dishes in such a manner on the shelves, that they fell on
the slightest motion. In short, they played the same tricks as those
used by the servant girl at Stockwell, with the same results, and for
the same purpose--the gratification of a love of mischief. They were no
sooner secured in the county gaol than the noises ceased, and most
people were convinced that human agency alone had worked all the
wonder. Some few of the most devoutly superstitious still held out in
their first belief, and refused to listen to any explanation.

These tales of haunted houses, especially those of the last and present
century, however they may make us blush for popular folly, are yet
gratifying in their results; for they show that society has made a vast
improvement. Had Parsons and his wife, and the other contrivers of the
Cock Lane deception, lived two hundred years earlier, they would not,
perhaps, have found a greater number of dupes, but they would have been
hanged as witches, instead of being imprisoned as vagabonds. The
ingenious Anne Robinson and the sly lasses of Baldarroch would,
doubtless, have met a similar fate. Thus it is pleasant to reflect,
that though there may be as much folly and credulity in the world as
ever, in one class of society, there is more wisdom and mercy in
another than ever were known before. Lawgivers, by blotting from the
statute-book the absurd or sanguinary enactments of their predecessors,
have made one step towards teaching the people. It is to be hoped that
the day is not far distant when lawgivers will teach the people by some
more direct means, and prevent the recurrence of delusions like these,
and many worse, which might be cited, by securing to every child born
within their dominions an education in accordance with the advancing
state of civilization. If ghosts and witches are not yet altogether
exploded, it is the fault, not so much of the ignorant people, as of
the law and the government that have neglected to enlighten them.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular
Delusions, by Ch