the neighbours and
country people afterwards, made their task comparatively easy. A little
common dexterity was all they had used; and, being themselves unsuspected,
they swelled the alarm by the wonderful stories they invented. It was they
who loosened the bricks in the chimneys, and placed the dishes in such a
manner on the shelves, that they fell on the slightest motion. In short,
they played the same tricks as those used by the servant girl at
Stockwell, with the same results, and for the same purpose--the
gratification of a love of mischief. They were no sooner secured in the
county gaol than the noises ceased, and most people were convinced that
human agency alone had worked all the wonder. Some few of the most
devoutly superstitious still held out in their first belief, and refused
to listen to any explanation.

These tales of haunted houses, especially those of the last and present
century, however they may make us blush for popular folly, are yet
gratifying in their results; for they shew that society has made a vast
improvement. Had Parsons and his wife, and the other contrivers of the
Cock Lane deception, lived two hundred years earlier, they would not
perhaps have found a greater number of dupes, but they would have been
hanged as witches, instead of being imprisoned as vagabonds. The ingenious
Anne Robinson and the sly lasses of Baldarroch would doubtless have met a
similar fate. Thus it is pleasant to reflect, that though there may be as
much folly and credulity in the world as ever in one class of society,
there is more wisdom and mercy in another than ever were known before.
Lawgivers, by blotting from the statute-book the absurd or sanguinary
enactments of their predecessors, have made one step towards teaching the
people. It is to be hoped that the day is not far distant when lawgivers
will teach the people by some more direct means, and prevent the
recurrence of delusions like these, and many worse, which might be cited,
by securing to every child born within their dominions an education in
accordance with the advancing state of civilisation. If ghosts and witches
are not yet altogether exploded, it is the fault, not so much of the
ignorant people, as of the law and the government that have neglected to
enlighten them.

POPULAR FOLLIES OF GREAT CITIES.

La faridondaine--la faridondon,
Vive la faridondaine!--_Beranger_.

[Illustration: T]

The popular humours of a great city ar