We come across a curious superstition. Two men were executed for burglary, at Horsham, on August 22nd, when the silly custom of passing the hands of the dead men over the necks of two or three females, as a supposed cure for the glandular enlargements, was upon this occasion had recourse to. And the Times of April 24, 1837, quoting the Gloucester Journal, has in a paragraph headed "Revolting behaviour of a Hangman," with which I will not horrify my readers, the following: "Several women were on the platform to have their necks charmed by rubbing the dead man's hands over their wens as a cure."
But if we get horrible paragraphs in the papers, we also occasionally meet with amusing ones, as this from the Times of September 22nd—
"March of Intellect.
"We can vouch (says the Bristol Mirror) for the authenticity of the following copy of a letter from her late servant, to Mrs.——
"'Dear Madam, I cannot enter into the family of the Hon. ——, without returning you many thanks for your unsteady and dishonourable character. I am truly sorry that you have been so unfortunate in your four cooks since I left, and trust the fifth will be as indifferent; but your cruel and unladylike insinuations could have no weight where my real character was so well known.
"'From your grateful friend, ——,
"'P.S.—Farewell—
"'May the turf where thy old reliques rest
Bear herbs, odoriferous herbs, on thy breast:
Their heads, thyme and sage, and pot marjoram wave,
And fat be the gander that feeds on thy grave.'"
Although the disabilities under which the Jews laboured were not removed by Act of Parliament, public opinion was decidedly in favour of the freedom of the Israelite. Mr. (afterwards Sir) Francis Goldsmid, was the first Jew that was ever called to the English bar, and this took place in 1833. According to the Times of November 18th, quoting the Liverpool Albion, it was in 1835 that a Jew was a juror in a law court for the first time.
"It may be noted, as a novelty, that Mr. Joseph Hess, silversmith, of Lord Street, was the first person of the Jewish persuasion who ever discharged the duties of a juryman in any of the courts of this country; that gentleman, after having been sworn on the Pentateuch, forming one of the grand jury panel at the Kirkdale Quarter Sessions."