TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8130, 3 May 1906, Page 7

TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT.

STRANGE INSTANCE OF GERMAN SUPERSTITION. A trial for witchcraft, which has just been held in the Upper Palatinate, is attracting wide attentiou as a foroible illustration of tho depths of ignorance and superstition in wbloh large district* of Southern Germany were still sunk, stated a Berlin message a few weeks ago. A farm labourer named Hirmer was employed by a woman named Koelbl to look after her horse. Hirmer, however, neglected his duties, the horse became sick, and to excuse himself Hirmer asserted that the animal bad been bewitobed. Every morning-he found it bathed in sweat, and with its mane and tail plaited by unearthly hands. He advised Frau Koebll to secure the services of a neighbouring dootor, a certain Hartwig. At dead of night Hart wig entered the stable, fixed a Crucifix, with two burning candles, at the horse's head, wrote some mysterious letters on the wall with "consecrated" ohalk, drew a magio circle round himself, opened his book, and began incantations in some unknown jargon. He shivered with the violence of his emotions, and after three-quarters of an hour revealed that the witch who had "possessed" the horse y/as a certain Frau Sobaumberger. At the trial the Judge at first was not inclined to convict Hartwig, as he regarded the witch doctor as perfectly sincere, but on reflection he condemned him to four weeks' imprisonment as an impostor.