About 3 o’clock this morning a woman of distinction fell in labour at the masquerade, was carried home in her habit, and deliver’d of a son in two hours after.
Saturday, Jan. 30.
This being the anniversary of the martyrdom of K. Cha. I. Dr. Middleton preached before the Ld Mayor and Aldermen of this City, at St. Paul’s; the Bp. of Peterborough, before the Lords at Westminster Abby, and Dr. Littleton at St. Margaret’s before the Commons.
Sunday, Jan. 31.
His Majesty did not go to chapel, nor dine in publick.
Divine service was performed in the new church of St. George’s Bloomsbury, for the first time since the consecration, by the Rev. Mr. Vernon in the forenoon, and by the Rev. Mr. Capper in the afternoon.
Domestick Occurences in JANUARY, 1731.
Melancholy Effects of Credulity in
Witchcraft.
For Burlington in Pensilvania we have an account, that the owners of several Cattle believing them to be bewitch’d, caused some suspected men and women to be taken up, and trials to be made for detecting them. Above 300 people assembled near the governor’s house, and a pair of scales being erected, the suspected persons were each weigh’d against a large Bible; but all of them vastly outweighing it, the accused were then to be tied head and feet together, and put into a river, on supposition that if they swam they must be guilty. This trial they offer’d to undergo, in case as many of their accusers should be served in the like manner; which being done, they all swam very buoyant, to the no small diversion of the spectators, and clearing of the accused.—This has revived a like transaction in Somersetshire in Sept. last, and another in France.