ON THE TOAD. 511 



during the time of sucking were heard to smack 

 their lips like a young child. 



As those reptiles are apt by their struggles to 

 get out of the bag, the open end ought to be 

 made with an open hem, that the string may 

 run the more readily, and fasten tightly about 

 the neck. 



It would be improper to quit the subject 

 without mentioning the origin of this strange 

 discovery, which was owing to a woman near 

 Hungerford, who labored under a cancerous 

 complaint in her breast, which had long baffled 

 all applications. The account she gives of the 

 manner in which she came by her knowledge is 

 singular, and I may say apocryphal. She says 

 of herself, that in the height of her disorder she 

 went to some church where there was a vast 

 crowd : on going into a pew, she was accosted 

 by a strange clergyman, who, after express- 

 ing compassion for her situation, told her that 

 if she would make such an application of living 

 toads # as above mentioned, she would be well. 



* I have been told that she not only made use of living toads, 

 but permitted the dead ones to remain at her breast, by way of 

 cataplasms, for some weeks. I have been informed that the rela- 

 tion of this strange method of cure was brought over a few years 

 ago by one of our foreign ministers ; and that there is also notice 

 taken of it in Wheeler 's Travels, 



