lowered by another noise, resembling more the effect produced by a number of wet fingers drawn over the edge of glasses, than any thing else to which it could well be compared. The sound announced, as he said, the arrival of his good or protecting spirits, and seemed to encourage him to proceed. A short time afterwards, a yelling was heard of a frightful and unusual nature, which came, he declared, from the malignant spirits, whose presence was necessary and indispensable to the completion of the catastrophe.

The company were now petrified with horror; and Schrepfer continuing his invocations, the door suddenly opened with violence, and something that resembled a black ball or globe, rolled into the middle of the room. It was invested with smoke or cloud, in the midst of which appeared to be a human face, like the countenance of the Chevalier de Saxe. From this form issued a loud and angry voice, which exclaimed in German, "Carl, was wolte du mit me? Why dost thou disturb me?" Language, as may be supposed, can ill describe the consternation produced among the spectators at such a sight. The prince, whose impious curiosity had summoned his uncle's ghost, and to whom the spectre principally addressed itself, far from manifesting coolness, or attempting reply, betrayed the strongest marks of horror and contrition. Throwing himself on his knees, he called on God for mercy; while others of the terrified party earnestly besought the magician to give the only remaining proof of his art for which they now were anxious, by dismissing the apparition. But near an hour elapsed, before, by the force of his invocations, the spectre could be compelled to disappear. Nay, when at length Schrepfer had succeeded in dismissing it; the moment that the company began to resume a degree of serenity, the door which had been closed, burst open again, and the same hideous form presented itself anew to their eyes. The most resolute and collected among them, were not proof to its second appearance, and a scene of universal terror ensued. Schrepfer, however, by reiterated exorcisms or exertions, finally dismissed the apparition. The terrified spectators soon dispersed, overcome with amazement and fully satisfied of Schrepfer's supernatural powers.

Schrepfer did not long enjoy his celebrity, and his death is not the least extraordinary part of his history. These gentlemen whom he had in some ⚫ measure initiated in his mysteries (for he professed to instruct in the science of magic) were promised by him an exhibition more wonderful than any at which they had yet assisted. For this purpose they attended him into the wood of Rosendaal, which is at a small distance from the gates of Leipsic. It was in summer, before the sun rose, between three and four in the morning. When they came to a certain part of the grove, he desired them to stay a little, while he went on one side to make the requisite invocations. After waiting a few minutes, they heard the report of a pistol. Running to the spot, they found that he had shot himself, and was already without sense. He soon expired.

AWFUL LEGACY.

In the confession of Edward Clarke, who was executed at Chelmsford, is the following curious article: "I, Edward Clarke, now in a few hours expecting to die, do sincerely wish, as my last request, that three of my fingers be taken from my hands, to be given to my three children as a warning to them, as my fingers were the cause of bringing myself to the gallows, and my children to poverty; and I also request, that C. Brown, and two brother prisoners, will be so kind as to see it done-they knowing which fingers they are, by their marking them at my wish with ink." This request was complied with.

HORRIBLE MURDER OF A CHILD BY STARVATION.

THE annals of crime scarcely furnish a more diabolical instance of cruelty than the one we are about to record; but the circumstances of the murder are eclipsed, in point of hardened depravity, by the means taken to conceal it.

In July, 1762, Sarah Metyard and Sarah Morgan Metyard, mother and daughter, were placed at the bar of the Old Bailey for the murder of Ann Nayler, a girl, 13 years of age, by shutting up and confining her, and starving her to death. There was also a second indictment for the murder of Mary Nayler, her sister, aged eight years. The unfortunate child (Ann) it appeared, had been apprenticed to the elder prisoner, and it was principally on the evidence of her own apprentices that she and her daughter were convicted. They deposed that about Michaelmas, 1758, Ann Nayler attempted to escape, she was used so ill; being frequently beaten with a thick walking-stick and a hearth-broom, and made to go without her victuals. The day she endeavoured to run away, a milkman who served the family, stopped her, as she was running from the door, and brought her back to the prisoners. The daughter dragged her up stairs, and while the mother held her head, beat her cruelly with a broomstick. She was then tied up with a rope round her waist, and her hands fastened behind, so that she could neither sit nor lie, and in this position she remained for three days, without food. During this period she never spoke, but used to stand and groan. At the end of the three days, the witness observed she did not move; she hung double; and when this was mentioned to the daughter, she said she'd make her move. She ran up stairs, and struck her with a shoe, but there was no animation in her. The mother came up, laid the child across her lap, and sent one of the girls for some drops. The girls were ordered down stairs, and the unhappy victim was never afterwards seen by them. In order to remove the suspicion of her death from the minds of the apprentices, by leading them to imagine she had made her escape, the

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old woman two days after this, left the garret door open, and the street door ajar, and sent one of the girls up stairs to tell Nayler to come down to dinner. The girl returned with the intelligence of the door being open, and Nayler missing. The old woman made answer, "She is run away. I suppose she ran away while we were at dinner." The girl replied, "Then she has left her shoes behind her."-"O!" returned the other, "she would not stay for her shoes."

Richard Rooker deposed that he lived in the prisoner's house about three months, which was long since the child had been missing. He observed the children were very ill used, and had very little food. When they had any, they were not allowed more than five minutes to eat it. The old woman's disposition was so violent that he was obliged to remove; and out of compassion to the daughter, who was repeatedly beaten by her, he took her into his service. The mother, however, would not suffer her to remain in peace. She came almost every day, insulting the witness and the daughter. On one occasion

he heard the cry of murder; and going into a little room, he found the girl in agonies, struggling with the old woman. She had driven her up into a corner, and had got a sharp-pointed knife in her hand, with which she was attempting to stab her. During the altercation he heard the daughter say to the mother:-" Mother, mother, remember the gully-hole." Some time after, he questioned the girl as to the meaning of those words, when with great reluctance she told him that the child and her sister had been both starved to death. That a few days after Ann Nayler's death, the body was carried up into a garret, and locked up into a box, where it was kept upwards of two months till it became putrefied, and maggots came from her. The mother then took it out of this box, cut it in pieces, cut off the arms and legs, and burnt one of the hands in the fire, cursing her that her bones were so long consuming! saying the fire told no tales. Then she tied the body and head in a brown cloth, and the other parts in another, being part of the bed-furniture. She carried them to Chick Lane gully-hole, and threw them in. Her mother told her, that as she was coming back, she saw one Mr. Inch, who kept a public house near Temple Bar, who cried out, "what a stink there is!" to which she replied, that he had it all to himself, for she smelt none. She called for some brandy and went away. In consequence of this confession, Rooker wrote a letter to the officers of the parish where he dwelt, acquainting them with the particulars.

Thomas Lovegrove, overseer of St. Andrew's, deposed that on the 12th of December, at near twelve at night the constable came to him with two watchmen, and told him there were parts of a human body lying at the gullyhole in Chick Lane. He went with them to the spot, and the smell of the body was so offensive, that the watchmen were unwilling to remove it. It was at length taken to the work-house; the parts were washed, and laid upon a board; a coroner's inquest set upon it, and returned a verdict of wilful murder. In the meantime, in consequence of Rooker's letter, the mother and daughter were apprehended.

Some other witnesses were examined, who corroborated the essential parts of the above evidence. The mother, when asked for her defence, told a lame story of the girl's running away, and called one or two witnesses to prove that she used her apprentices well, and gave them sufficient food, but in this they failed. One of them said he had never been in her house at meal-times, and never saw the children have any. He described the place in which they worked

to be a little slip room, two yards wide at the widest part, and tapering at the end.

The daughter denied all participation in the murder excepting the concealment; and threw all the odium on her mother. "When the girl was dead,” she said, "I desired my mother to apply to the parish to have her buried. She said I was a fool, for if she did, every body would see the girl had been starved; and if the girls were asked, they could tell how long she went without victuals. I then asked her to get the other girls not to say how long she had been kept without food; but this, she replied, would be useless, as it would be discovered on opening the body. She told me if I would stay with her 'till she was out of danger, I should go to service. When I thought she was out of danger I begged to go to service, as she proposed. She said, no, I should not; I should stay with her while she was in the house. She said I might tell and be d-d; for if I did, she would swear I killed her, and that she secreted my crimes. The body never was buried. She wanted me one night to help her in dividing the body in pieces, and said I need not be afraid of her now she was dead, for she would not bite me. This was two or three months after the girl died. I told her, indeed I could not. I was then with her up in the room; I offered to go out; but she told me I must help her. I got out of the room; and she caught hold of my clothes. I cried. She said, what would the girls think, seeing me cry so? How could I be such a cruel brute as to leave her? I told her she had brought it on herself, and must get out of it how she could. After that, she told me she had done the limbs up in one bundle, and tied the body and head in another. She tried to take the head off, but could not. She brought them down stairs, and first took the limbs out, and carried them to the gully-hole in Chick-lane. She said she tried to fling them over the wall, but could not. Then she came and took the other bundle, which she said she carried to the same place, and found the other parts lying there. One night, after the children were gone to bed, she brought down the hand which had a stump finger, which she said she would make away with in the fire, because the fire concealed every thing,"-Here the elder prisoner interrupted her daughter, by saying it was all false; and that if she had burnt any part, she might as easily have burnt all. To which the other replied, "that she said she would destroy it all by fire, but it would make a smell, and alarm the neighbours." The daughter called a few witnesses to character; but both the prisoners were found guilty. "Death."

The interval between their condemnation and execution was spent in mutual recrimination. When they were visited in their cell, no pen can describe the anguish of soul and horror visible in both their countenances. Both equally persisted in denying the guilt of the murder; but the daughter, in the vigour of youth, was most averse to die, to avoid which she had pleaded most pathetically for a little respite, and this after a legal plea of pregnancy had been set aside by a jury of matrons. The whole night previous to their execution, the mother had continued in a fit, speechless, and without any motion, except strong convulsions, which were ascribed to her long and obstinate fasting, with a view to destroy herself before execution. Being put into the cart, the mother was laid along at the bottom, in a state of insensibility, and when they arrived at Tyburn, she continued in a fit, scarcely seeming to breathe or move, except now and then with a convulsive twitch, her breast appearing greatly swelled, and heaving. She was obliged to be supported till she was turned off. The daughter still persisted in her innocence of all but the concealment, and added that she died a martyr to her innocence.

CRUELTIES OF THE SPANIARDS TO THE AMERICAN INDIANS. How many millions of men have the Spaniards made away with in America! Bartholomew Casa affirms that in forty-five years they destroyed above ten millions of human souls; an unaccountable way of converting those poor savages to Christianity. These millions were butchered outright, and if we add those who died labouring in the mines, doing the drudgery of asses, oxen, and mules, what a vast number will they amount to! Some of them carried burthens upon their backs of a hundred and sixty pounds' weight, above three hundred miles. How many of these poor wretches have perished by water as well as by land, by diving so many fathoms deep for the fishing of pearl, who stay there sometimes half an hour under water, panting and drawing the same breath all the while, and are fed on purpose with coarse biscuit and dry things to make them long-winded! And if what is reported be true, they hunt the poor Indians with dogs to make themselves sport. A story goes of a Spaniard, who, to exercise his dog in this game, made a pretence to send a letter to the governor of the next town by an old woman, who being gone a little way off, he let slip his dog after her, who being come near, she fell down upon her knees, saying, "good Signior dog, Signior dog, do not kill me, for I am going to the governor from your master.' 'Tis easy to imagine how detestable the Spaniards became to those poor Pagans for these cruelties. There is a story goes of Hathu Cacica, a stout Indian, who being to die, was persuaded by a Franciscan friar to turn Christian, and then he should go to heaven: Cacica asked him whether there were any Spaniards in heaven? "Yes, says the friar, 'tis full of them." "Nay then, said the Indian, " I had rather go to hell than have any more of their company."

MIRACULOUS ESCAPE FROM THE INQUISITION.

In the year 1702, Don Estevan de Xeres, a rich inhabitant of Mexico, quitted America in order to reside in Spain. He disembarked at Lisbon, and took a lodging, intending to pass a few days in that city, in order to recover from the fatigues of his voyage.

The avarice of his landlord was inflamed at the sight of his riches, and in order to appropriate a part at least to himself, he resolved to accuse him to the Inquisition, and made use of the interim between the information and the arrival of the officers, to secrete something of value, judging he should not be called to account for it. In conjunction with his son, who had acquired a slight knowledge of Don Estevan while he resided in Mexico, this execrable plan was formed and carried into effect; for the next day, late in the evening, he was apprehended. Fortunately he had, among his domestics, a young negro named Zamora, whom he had educated from his infancy, and the faithful youth had abundantly repaid the confidence which he placed in him. He was present when his master was arrested, and followed, at a distance, the familiars who conducted his benefactor. He saw them enter the gates of the Inquisition; and from that moment he formed the resolution of saving his life, or of perishing in the attempt. But what was to be done without money? He therefore hastened back to his master's lodging, and knowing from the confidence placed in him, where the most valuable effects were deposited, he seized a small chest filled with diamonds, and a pocket book containing valuable notes. He then hastened to the house of the French consul, related to him the particulars of his master's apprehension, and besought him to take charge of the treasure. The consul