From late English apcrs.
SPECIMENS OF CREDUIITY.
{"newspaper_name": "The Wilmingtonian, and Delaware register.", "edition": "01", "page": "p2", "byline": ""}
This is called an enlightened age. Take,
gentle reader, we bcsecch thee, the follow


ing flct in illustration.-N longer ago thar
last Saturday se'night. man was szvaM to{s
q 7piz-aYd at Wickham Keith, in this couA-
", in the presence OF some hundreds Of pe3-
pie /! The particulars, as we learn, are
these:-1n that paris!i lives Isaac Stebbings,
a little spare IN N, about 81 years old, who
obtains livelihood rs huck stel; and hard .,


his cottage lives a thatcher, whose wife un-
fortunately, is afflicted in mind. In the some
parish there happens to be a farmer whose
mind is also occasionally disturbed.-As III
form~r days of gross credullty and ignorance
some one or otherput forth the surMse that
these two afflicted persons are bewitched,
ami Steobings was spoken Of As the worker
of the mischief.' Story soon grew on story;
and accumulated hear-says were accepted
of among the vulgar in the neignborhood, Is
proof undcnjable,' Among other things il
was said, that the friends Of the alliictcs. wo-
man had recourse to the means recorded III
wtchcraft annals for detecting the d yi3s
agent and whilst tile frying-pan operations
wee going on at night, Stebbngs came dan
cling up at the door. In his denial ct this
circumstance, Stebhings admitted that he
did once call at his neighbor's with micker-
el for sale. at four o'clock in the morning,
before the family were up, and this at!n,is-
sion was taken to be as much as he was like
ly to make. Besides this, the village shoe


maker persisted that one morning as s,teb~
bings passed two or three times before his
house, he could not make lis wax--the
ingredients would neither melt nor MIX
Dabbed wizard beyond all doubt, poor
Stebbings, ignorant as his neighbors, and
teazed beyond bearing proposed, at length of
himself, the good Old fashioned ordeal Of
sink or swim The proposal was readily
caught At. Time and place were agreed on
e--the following Saturday at two O'Clock, in
a large pond called the Grimmer, on Wick
ingham green. Four men were appointed
to walk into the water with him, and the
constable of the parish engaged to attend
and keep the peace. The sides OF the pond
were crowded with spectators-men, wo-
men and children.-Stebbngs had ON his
breeches and shirt, and when the men had
walked with him into the water breast high,
they lifted him up and laid him flat on his
back on the water Stebbings moved nci


ther hand nor foot, and continued in that po-
sition for ten ninuSes.-This was the first
trial, and the spectators cried out give him