were, with our mother's milk ; and, growing- up with 

 us at a time when they take the fastest hold and 

 make the most lasting impressions, become so inter- 

 woven into our very constitutions, that the strongest 

 good sense is required to disengage ourselves from 

 them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower people 

 retain them their whole lives through, since their 

 minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and 

 therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate 

 to the occasion. 



Such a preamble seems to be necessary before 

 we enter on the superstitions of this district, lest 

 we should be suspected of exaggeration in a recital 

 of practices too gross for this enlightened age. 



But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would 

 do well to remember, that no longer ago than the 

 year 175 1, and within twenty miles of the capital, 

 they seized on two superannuated wretches, crazed 

 with age, and overwhelmed with infirmities, on a 

 suspicion of witchcraft ; and, by trying experiments, 

 drowned them in a horse-pond. 



In a farm-yard near the middle of this village 

 stands, at this day, a row of pollard-ashes, which, by 

 the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, 

 manifestly show that, in former times, they have 

 been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and 

 flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, 

 while ruptured children, stripped naked, were 

 pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion 



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