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"you have given me a living instance; there needs no proof; but pray take care you do not bring death amongst us in real earnest." He then lent his aid in the recovery of the poor mate, who, as he retrieved his senses, still relapsed at the sight of Mr. Burnet: so that Mr. Walker was obliged to make him entirely disappear, and go call others to his assistance; which took up some considerable time in doing, every body, as Mr. Burnct advanced to them, being more or less surprised: but they were all called to by him, and told the manner of the cheat, and then they were by degrees convinced of his reality; though every one was before thoroughly satisfied of his death. I being persuaded that this story carries a lesson in it, which speaks for itself, shall conclude it by mentioning this circumstance, that the poor mate never rightly recovered the use of his senses from that hour. Nature had received too great a shock, by which reason was flung from her seat, and could never regain it afterwards; a constant stupidity hung around him, and he could never be brought to look direct at Mr. Burnet afterwards, though he was as brave a man as ever went, in all his senses, to face death by day-light."

AN ACCOUNT OF A FAMILY WHO WERE ALL AFFLICTED WITH THE LOSS OF THEIR LIMBS.

John Dowling, a poor labouring man, living at Wattisham, had a wife and six children, the eldest a girl, fifteen years of age, the youngest about four months. They were all that time very healthy, and one of them had been ill for some time before. On Sunday the 10th of January, 1762, the eldest girl complained, in the morning, of a pain in her leg; particularly in the calf of her leg; towards evening the pain grew exceedingly violent. The same evening, another girl complained of the same violent pain in the same leg. On the Monday, the mother and another child; and on Tuesday, all the rest of the family were afflicted in the same manner, some in one leg and some in both legs. The little infant was taken from the mother's breast; it seemed to be in pain, but the limbs did not mortify: it lived a few weeks. The mother and the other five children continued in violent pain a considerable time. In about four or five days, the diseased leg began to turn black gradually, appearing at first covered with blue spots, as if it had been bruised. The other leg of those who were affected at first only in one leg about that time was also affected with the same excruciating pain, and in a few days the leg also began to mortify. The mortified parts separated gradually from the sound parts, and the surgeon had, in most of the cases, no other trouble than to cut through the bone, which was black and almost dry. The state of their limbs was thus: Mary, the mother, aged 40 years, has lost the right foot at the ancle; the left foot is also cut off, and the two bones of the leg remain almost dry, with only some little putrid flesh adhering in the same places. The flesh is sound to about two inches below the knee. The bones would have been sawn through that place, if she would have consented to it.

Mary, aged fifteen years, both legs off below the knees-Elizabeth, aged thirteen years, both legs off below the knees. Sarah, aged ten years, one foot off at the ancle: the other foot was affected, but not in so great a degree, and was now sound again.-Robert, aged eight, both legs off below the knees.Edward, aged four years, both feet off.-An infant, four months old, dead.

The father was attacked about a fortnight after the rest of the family, and in a slight degree; the pain being confined to his fingers. Two fingers of the

right hand continued for a long time discoloured, and partly shrunk and contracted; but he subsequently had some use of them.-The nails of the other hand were also discoloured; he lost two of them.

It is remarkable, that during all the time of this misfortune, the whole family are said to have appeared well, in other respects, ate heartily, and slept well when the violence of the pain began to abate. The mother was quite emaciated, and had very little use of her hands. The eldest girl had a superficial ulcer in one thigh. The rest of the family were pretty well. The stumps of some of them perfectly healed.

UNIVERSAL PESTILENCE.

There was a pestilence in 1348, that went over the whole world.--Guido, who lived at that time, gives the following description of this plague :-He says, it began in the East and went over the whole earth, and carried off the fourth part of mankind. It raged for seven months at Avignon, where Guido lived, and was of two species. The first began with a violent fever and spitting of blood, and not one survived that was seized with it, but died in three days. The other began with a continued fever, with red spots, and abscesses under the arms, or in the arm-pits; it was equally mortal with the former, and those who were seized with it, died in three days.

PUNISHMENT OF THE KNOUT IN RUSSIA.

Olearius gives a description of the manner in which he saw the knout inflicted on eight men and one woman, only for selling brandy and tobacco without a license. The executioner's man, after stripping them down to the waist, tied their feet, and took one at a time on his back. The executioner stood at three paces distance with a large pizzle, to the end of which were fastened three throngs of an elk's skin untanned, with which, springing forward, whenever he struck, the blood gushed out at every blow. The men had each twenty-five or twenty-six lashes: the woman, though only sixteen, fainted away. After their backs were thus dreadfully mangled, they were tied together two and two; and those who sold tobacco having a little of it, and those who sold brandy a little bottle put about their necks; they were then whipped through the city of Petersburgh for about a mile and a half; and then brought back to the place of their first punishment and dismissed. According to M. de la Motreye, this is what is termed the moderate knout; for when the sentence orders it between the moderate and severe, the executioner takes off pieces of flesh at every stroke; and when it is ordered to be given with the utmost severity, the executioner striking the flank under the ribs, cuts the flesh to the very bowels. It is no wonder that many die of this cruel and inhuman punishment.

IMMOLATION OF HUMAN BEINGS.

In the kingdom of the Ashantees, in Africa, (forming, it is supposed, a population of about a million, and possessing a disposable force of 150,000 men,) the prevalence of this horrible rite exists to an appalling extent: an

authentic communication recently received, states that it forms a leading feature in all their great festivals, some of which occur every 21 days, and that no fewer than 100 victims are sacrificed at each. Besides these, there are sacrifices at the death of every person of rank, more or less bloody, according to their dignity; on the death of his mother, the king butchered no fewer than 3,000 victims! The funeral rites of a great captain were repeated weekly for three months, and nearly 400 person were slaughtered. At the funeral of a person of rank, it is usual to wet the grave with the blood of a freeman of respectability all the retainers of a family are present, and the heaps of all the victims being deposited in the bottom of the grave, several are unsuspectingly called out to assist in placing the coffin, and just as it rests on the heads or skulls, a slave from behind stuns one of these free men by a violent blow, followed by a deep gash in the back part of the neck, and he is rolled in on the top of the body, and the grave instantaneously filled up! Here is another affecting illustration of the Scripture truth, "The dark habitations of the earth are full of cruelty."

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THE CRUEL INFANTICIDE.

A person of the name of Elizabeth Burnet was committed to Yarmouth gaol for the murder of her bastard child. This young woman had kept company for some time with a sailor, and it was generally believed he was to be married to her. Business called him away, and the lady at whose house Betty lived, suspected from appearances that she was with child; but the girl, on being questioned, positively denied it. On the 23rd of August, 1785, there was a great wash in the family, and in this she was employed. The fatigue of such a business brought on her labour, and she retired from the laundry at about seven o'clock in the evening, to the sea-side, where nature performed the part of the accoucheur, and she was safely delivered of a male infant. The tender, innocent babe, as soon as she had strength to rise, she threw into the sea, and departed tottering from the shore. She had not gone above a hundred paces before she heard the child cry on that noise she returned; and found her son thrown by the surge back to the shore, strong and alive. She threw it a second time with equal bad success as to the murder, for it came back with the waves alive: She threw it in a third time, but her strength being so much exhausted she could not send it as far out as at the first or second attempt, and therefore throwing it but a little way, the child again cried. Providence seemed to have given this inhuman wretch sufficient time for repentance, but, instigated by some hellish agent, she lost all sense of parental feeling, all motherly affection, and taking up a stone she beat out the brains of the child, and then waded as far into the sea as she could, and committed its body to the waves, and returned home. Her manner of going out, and her returning in so debilitated a state, alarmed the other servants; and her mistress being told of her state, ordered her to bed imagining she was in labour, and sent for a man midwife. When he arrived, and enquired scientifically into the fact, he informed the lady of the house that the girl had been delivered within a very short time. This naturally brought on an inquiry, to which she gave many evasive answers; until next morning, when a fisherman having found the body of the infant, and it being brought into the room to her, (for the whole town had heard the report) she confessed the fact as above related, and was thereupon committed to gaol. She was shortly after tried for the murder and executed.

HYPOCRISY DETECTED.

In the parish of Severin in Paris, there lived an individual, who exteriorly was of the most regular conduct, and enjoyed the reputation of loving virtue, and delighting in good; assiduous to every exercise of religion, he seemed to follow its maxims with exemplary fervour. The clergy and the inhabitants of the parish were edified by his behaviour, he was looked up to as a paragon of piety, and named the holy man. He was far from being what he appeared.Under the veil of devotion he concealed the most atrocious and depraved soul. When out of church, his sole occupation was to inveigle poor young girls into his house, and promise to put them apprentices with honest people. But far from fulfilling such respectable engagements, the wretch sold the unhappy victims, and delivered them up to the most shameful prostitution. One of the unhappy girls, who for three days was struggling for her virtue, had courage enough, not only to resist, but to form the praise-worthy resolution of making the suborner known to the police. She found a bit of paper in her place of confinément, and with her blood traced the detail of her misfortunes on it, and then threw it out of the window, after having directed it to the rector of the parish. Luckily it was found by a gentleman who brought it to the priest, and told him where he had picked it up. The priest went to the attorney-general, and made him acquainted with the subject of the note he had received. The attorney-general said, he had for a long time been searching, but in vain, for a wretch in that predicament; he assured the ecclesiastic that he would, without loss of time, bring the villain to condign punishment; he accordingly wrote to him in the following terms: "Being informed that your charity is become proverbial in the parish you live in, I wish you could grant me half an hour's conversation at my hotel, I have something important to communicate to you, and that you may favour me sooner with your company, I do not hesitate to tell you that it has reference to some pious designs." The man, full of confidence, flies to the attorney-general, who received him with the most apparent cordiality, and told him that he had some thoughts of proposing to his Majesty the creation of a new office, and that he destined him for it, that the title of, Father of the Poor,' would perfectly agree with his virtuous conduct. In the meantime a commissary and four agents of the police were rummaging his house. They there found twelve young girls in the greatest misery, most of whom had already sacrificed their virtue. They reported the whole affair to the attorney-general, who had the hypocritical villain arrested and conducted to prison, where he was destined to pass the remainder of his days. The young girls were taken care of by the parish.

FORCE OF IMAGINATION.

There was in the Hospital of Incurables at Paris, a young man, an ideot from his birth, whose body was broken in the same places in which criminals are broken. He lived near twenty years in that condition: many persons saw him, and the queen mother making a visit to that hospital, had the curiosity not only to see, but even to touch the arms and legs of this youth, in the places where they were broken. The cause of this unhappy accident was soon found to be, that the mother while big with child, was present at the execution of a malefactor, who was broken alive on a cross, with an iron bar. That she was excessively terrified, it is easy to believe; but how the force of her imagination could produce such an effect on the fœtus is a matter of great

difficulty. Mallebranche attempts to account for it, in his usual manner, by ingenious conjectures, saying, that the imaginary faculty is a certain inward sensation, which is entirely performed by the assistance of the animal spirits ; that the fœtus ought to be deemed a part of the mother's body, so that whatever part of the mother suffers, is, by some occult communication, transmitted to the same part of the fœtus; wherefore, when the pregnant woman was shocked at that dreadful sight, possibly she suffered pain, and even some degree of laceration of the fibres, in the same limbs which she saw broken in the malefactor: but as her bones were firm and solid, they were capable of resisting the shock, whereas those of the foetus, being scarce knit, were easily broken, so as never to unite again. But whether this reasoning be just or not, the fact is a manifest proof, that the imagination has a wonderful degree of power to affect the body.

MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

Charles IX. of France, anxious to shed the blood of his subjects, was desirous to present the Pope's Legate with a ring, as a pledge of the sincerity of his intentions. This the Legate refused to take, assuring him that the word of so great a monarch was sufficient; but after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the king sent it to him with a suitable inscription.

When the news of the massacre was brought to Rome, Cardinal Alexandrini exclaimed to the Pope, "God be praised, the king of France has kept his promise!" A medal was struck on the occasion at Rome with this inscription:

"Pontifex Maximus Cologni necem probat."

On the accursed day of St. Bartholomew, this prince threatened the king of Navarre with immediate death if he did not directly declare himself to be a Protestant. On another occasion he behaved with more good humour. During the mass, previous to the ceremony of marriage between the king of Navarre and princess Marguerite, Henry walked in the choir of Notre Dame at Paris. Charles came out to him, took off his velvet hat, very richly decorated with diamonds, and threw it into the choir. "Now, brother," said he, "you shall hear mass, though it were but to get your hat again." The only two Protestants he wished to save from the massacre at Paris, were his neice and his surgeon, the celebrated Ambrose Paré. "I cannot," said he, "consent to take away the life of a person who can save that of so many others."

A few days before he died he said to Paré, "I do not know what ails me, but within these three days I find both my body and my mind in the same state of agitation as if I had a fever. Every instant, whether I am awake or asleep, I see human bodies flit before my eyes, covered with wounds and with blood! I wish that in the massacre of Paris I had spared the innocent and the young."

THE RADIANT BOY;

AN APPARITION SEEN BY THE LATE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY.

It is now more than twenty years since the late Lord Londonderry was, for the first time, on a visit to a gentleman in the north of Ireland. The mansion was such a one as spectres are fabled to inhabit. The apartment, also, which was appropriated to Lord Londonderry, was calculated to foster such a tone of

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