OF SELBORNE. 343 



exaggeration in a recital of practices too 

 gross for this enlightened age. 



But the people oiTring, m Hertfordshire^ 

 would do well to remember, that no longer 

 ago than the year 1751, 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 ex- 

 periments, 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 cica- 

 trices 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 that, by such a process, 

 the poor babes would be cured of their in- 

 firmity. As soon as the operation was over, 

 the tree in the suffering part was plastered 

 with loam, and carefully swathed up. If 

 the parts coalesced and soldered together, 



