THE DUNMOW WITCHCRAFT CASE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2359, 8 October 1880, Page 3

THE DUNMOW WITCHCRAFT CASE.

Early in the present month Samuel Sharpe, a labourer, made application to the Dunmow magistrates for a warrant against Charles Brewster and Peter Brewster, also labourers, and father and son, for inciting to a breach of the peace against his wife, Susan Sharpe. These worthies had taken it into their sapient heads that Susan Sharpe was a •witch. She was supposed to have exercised her malevolent will on the wife of the younger laborer, and so extensive was the sphere of her operations and the force of her magic that she had bewitched all the women at High Easter. She had made his bed rock under the younger Brewster, so that he felt as if he was in a swinging boat instead of in bed. She had thrown shadows on the wall of his room, and was imprudeut enough to throw her own shadow there, thus facilitating detection. Mrs Sharpe’s conduct was represented to her husband, who was understood to have made the accommodating undertaking that he would cut her up. It appeared, however, on cross-examination, that he had simply promised to adopt the less extreme course of shutting her up. Overtures were made to Mrs Sharpe herself in person. It was proposed to her that she should be thrown into a pond in order that she might disprove the imputation of witchcraft by giving evidence of her inability to swim. This te«t, however she declined, probably thinking that proof of innocence at the risk of drowning, and with the certainty of a ducking, would be of an unsatisfactory character. She offered to clear herself of suspicion in some less painful way, if any could be suggested, but her accusers stuck to the ordeal of water. Finally, they were summoned before the Dunmow magistrates, who appear to have been content to remonstrate with them on their folly, binding them over in their own recognizances of £5 to keep the peace for six months as well as to pay for the costs of the prosecution.