A CURIOUS SUPERSTITION.
[To mu Boma 07 ass BrEcuron."] Sts,—Many of your readers may be interested to hear that int this parish, some months ego, the wife of a highly respectable farmer presented him with twins, one of whom was born with hernia. As soon as was convenient, "upon a Sunday morning, before sunrise," the farmer and his wife, with several neighbours. and servants, proceeded to a wood on his farm. They then, with wedges, split a young, growing ash-tree, opening the split wide enough to permit the afflicted child to be passed through it. This was done three times with due solemnity, and the tree was restored to its previous condition, barring the split, which was carefully bound up with a hay band. The belief is, that if the sides of the tree reunite and grow together, the child will be cured. In this case, curiosity has removed the bayband, thereby, it is said, preventing the tree from uniting ; but what is the pre- sent condition of the child I have been unable to learn, because the parents have recently left the neighbourhood. I can, how. ever, testify that the ash-tree is now standing unhealed, and with a rent in its stem seven or eight feet long.
The belief in this cure for congenital hernia is an old and well- known one; but that it should be still practised soberly and solemnly not by poor ignorant labourers, but by well-to-do, fairly educated people, will perhaps surprise not a few.—I am, Sir, &c., FRED. T. ELwouxur. Foxdown, Wellington, Somerset, January 31st.
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