THE WITCH IN KENT 



Lying, as it does, almost under the shadow of the 

 great metropolis, whither the excursion train will 

 carry a labourer's family from its remotest corner at 

 the price of the wages of a single day, Kent at any 

 rate, it might have been thought, would have been 

 the first to free itself from the hold of a superstition 

 whose doom was sounded long ago. None the less, 

 faith in witchcraft, if dying, is not dead, and some 

 may perhaps find interest in a contemporary record, 

 compiled from the material afforded by one small 

 country parish only, of one phase of its decay. 



As far as one can gather, there has never been a 

 time when this parish was without its witch; and, 

 though there is only one now, a generation ago there 

 were three, if not four, women in it all credited with 

 strange powers. If the superstition takes here a 

 milder form than that which exerts so baneful an 

 influence on the Devonshire poor, the difference is 



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