I'^IS THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXVni 



Seleobn'e, Jan. 8, 1776. 

 Dear Sir, 



It is the hardest thing in the world to shake of! super- 

 stitious prejudices : tliey are sucked in as it 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 interwoven into our very con- 

 stitutions, 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 1751, 

 and within twenty miles of the capital, they seized on 

 two superannuated wretches, crazed with age, and over- 

 whelmed 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 per- 



