the average in
England, with one exception--that of the classes employed in the mines.
All of these men with whom I held any communication, would not have been
considered badly-informed persons in a higher condition of life. They
possessed much more than a common mechanical knowledge of their own
calling, and even showed a very fair share of information on the subject
of the history and antiquities of their native county. As usual, the
agricultural inhabitants appeared to rank lowest in the scale of
education and general intelligence. Among this class, and among the
fishermen, the strong superstitious feelings of the ancient days of
Cornwall still survive, and promise long to remain, handed down from
father to son as heirlooms of tradition, gathered together in a remote
period, and venerable in virtue of their antiquity. The notion, for
instance, that no wound will fester as long as the instrument by which
it was inflicted is kept bright and clean, still prevails extensively
among them. But a short time since, a boy in Cornwall was placed under
the care of a medical man (who related the anecdote to me) for a wound
in the back from a pitchfork; his relatives--cottagers of
respectability--firmly believe that his cure was accelerated by the
pains they took to keep the prongs of the pitchfork in a state of the
highest polish, night and day, throughout the whole period of his
illness, and down to the last hour of his complete restoration to
health.

Another and a more remarkable instance of the superstitions prevailing
among the least educated classes of the people, was communicated to me
by the same informant--a gentleman whose life had been passed in
Cornwall, and who was highly and deservedly respected by all those among
whom he resided.[3]

A small farmer living in one of the most western districts of the
county, died some years back of what was supposed at the time to be
"English Cholera." A few weeks after his decease, his wife married
again. This circumstance excited some attention in the neighbourhood. It
was remembered that the woman had lived on very bad terms with her late
husband, that she had on many occasions exhibited strong symptoms of
possessing a very vindictive temper, and that during the farmer's
lifetime she had openly manifested rather more than a Platonic
preference for the man whom she subsequently married. Suspicion was
generally excited: people began to doubt whether the first husband had
died fa