WITCHCRAFT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR SIR,—After reading your interesting correspondence on "Witchcraft in a Somersetshire Village," I thought I would pay a visit to an old lady, a very near neighbour of mine, who for the last forty years has made a business of "cutting the cards," here in the very heart of Bristol. I found she had been taken to the Union last Friday, but her good neighbour, who has often given a friendly tap of warning at her shutters when danger seemed to threaten the court, told me that many a time she would have sixteen or seventeen callers a night who came to have their fortunes told, the poorest of whom never left less than sixpence behind. Most of her clients were "ladies "—servants for the most part, I gathered—but some were like "real ladies," in "silks and beautiful clothes." Her busiest night was always a market- day, when the country-people came into town. Whether God would forgive her seemed doubtful to my informant—" They say He do forgive;" in any case, she was glad she didn't carry "them sins" on her back.
Another wise woman used to live "down at the corner" some nine years back, and she dropped down dead." Our poor friend has only come to the workhouse, and that for all her sixpences.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Broad Plain, Bristol. GEORGE HARE LEONARD.
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