Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 | Page 5

the many tests applied for the
discovery of witchcraft was the following. It is, I believe, a singular
instance, and but little known to the public. It was resorted to as
recently as 1759, and may be found in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of
that year.
"One _Susannah Hannokes_, an elderly woman of Wingrove, near
Ayleshbury, was accused by a neighbour for bewitching her
spinning-wheel, so that she could not make it go round, and offered to
make oath of it before a majistrate; on which the husband, to justify his
wife, insisted upon her being tried by the Church Bible, and that the
accuser should be present: accordingly she was conducted to the parish
church, where she was stript of all her cloathes to her shift and
undercoat, and weighed against the Bible; when, to the no small
mortification of her accuser, she outweighed it, and was honorably
acquitted of the charge."
A.D.N.
Abingdon, Nov. 1850.
* * * * * {405}
MINOR NOTES.
_Quin's incoherent Story._--The comic story of Sir Gammer Vans (Vol.
ii., p. 280.) reminds me of an anecdote related of Quin, who is said to
have betted Foote a wager that he would speak some nonsense which
Foote could not repeat off-hand after him. Quin then produced the
following string of incoherences:--

"So she went into the garden to pick a cabbage leaf, to make an
apple-pie of; and a she-bear, coming up the street, put her head into the
shop, and said 'Do you sell any soap?' So she died, and he very
imprudently married the barber; and the powder fell out of the
counsellor's wig, and poor Mrs. Mackay's puddings were quite entirely
spoilt; and there were present the Garnelies, and the Goblilies, and the
Picninnies, and the Great Pangendrum himself, with the little round
button at top, and they played at the ancient game of 'Catch who catch
can,' till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots."
L.
_Touchstone's Dial._--Mr. Knight, in a note on _As You Like It_, gives
us the description of a dial presented to him by a friend who had picked
it "out of a deal of old iron," and which he supposes to be such a one as
the "fool i' the forest" drew from his poke, and looked on with
lacklustre eye. It is very probable that this species of chronometer is
still in common use in the sister kingdom; for my brother mentions to
me that, when at school in Ireland some fifteen or sixteen years since,
he had seen one of those "_ring-dials_" in the possession of one of his
schoolfellows: and Mr. Carleton, in his amusing _Traits and Stories of
the Irish Peasantry_, thus describes them:--
"The ring-dial was the hedge-schoolmaster's next best substitute for a
watch. As it is possible that a great number of our readers may never
have heard of--much less seen one, we shall in a word or two describe
it--nothing indeed could be more simple. It was a bright brass ring,
about three quarters of an inch broad, and two inches and a half in
diameter. There was a small hole in it, which, when held opposite the
sun, admitted the light against the inside of the ring behind. On this
were marked the hours and the quarters, and the time was known by
observing the hour or the quarter on which the slender ray, that came in
from the hole in front, fell."
J.M.B.
_America and Tartary._--

"Un jésuite rencontra en Tartarie une femme huronne qu'il avoit connue
au Canada: il conclut de cette étrange aventure, que le continent de
l'Amérique se rapproche au nord-ouest du continent de l'Asie, et il
devina ainsi l'existence du détroit qui, longtemps après, a fait la gloire
de Bering et de Cook."--Chateaubriand, _Génie du Christianisme_,
Partie 4., Livre 4., Chap. 1.
Yet, with all deference to the edifying letters of this missionary jesuit, it
is difficult to make such distant ends meet. It almost requires a copula
like that of the fool, who, to reconcile his lord's assertion that he had
with a single bullet shot a deer in the ear and the hind foot, explained
that the deer was scratching his ear at the time with his foot.
Subjoined is one more proof of the communication which once existed
between America and the Old World:
Colomb disoit même avoir vu les restes des fourneaux de Salomon
dans les mines de Cibao."--Chateaubriand, _Génie, Notes, &c_.
MANLEIUS.
_Deck of Cards._--
"The king was slily finger'd from the deck." _Henry VI._, pt. iii. Act v.
Sc. 1.
It is well known, and properly noted, that a pack of cards was formerly
called a _deck_; but it should be added that the term is still commonly
used in Ireland, and from being made use