way in consequence of a glance from the evil eye. Finally, I got
from her an account of how any one who chose could themselves obtain the
power of the evil eye, and the receipt was, as nearly as I can
recollect, as follows:--

"Ye gang out ov' a night--ivery night, while ye find nine
toads--an' when ye've gitten t' nine toads, ye hang 'em up ov' a
string, an' ye make a hole and buries t' toads i't hole--and as
't toads pines away, so 't person pines away 'at you've looked
upon wiv a yevil eye, an' they pine and pine away while they
die, without ony disease at all!"

I do not know if this is the orthodox creed respecting the mode of
gaining the power of the evil eye, but it is at all events a genuine
piece of Folk Lore.

The above will corroborate an old story rife in Yorkshire, of an
ignorant person, who, being asked if he ever said his prayers, repeated
as follows:--

"From witches and wizards and long-tail'd buzzards,
And creeping things that run in hedge-bottoms,
Good lord, deliver us."

MARGARET GATTY.

Ecclesfield, April 24. 1850.

_Charms._--I beg to represent to the correspondents of the "NOTES AND
QUERIES," especially to the clergy and medical men resident in the
country, that notices of the superstitious practices still prevalent, or
recently prevalent, in different parts of the kingdom, for the cure of
diseases, are highly instructive and even valuable, on many accounts.
Independently of their archaeological {430} interest as illustrations of
the mode of thinking and acting of past times, they become really
valuable to the philosophical physician, as throwing light on the
natural history of diseases. The prescribers and practisers of such
"charms," as well as the lookers-on, have all unquestionable evidence of
the _efficacy_ of the prescriptions, in a great many cases: that is to
say, the diseases for which the charms are prescribed _are cured_; and,
according to the mode of reasoning prevalent with prescribers, orthodox
and heterodox, they must be cured by them,--_post hoc ergo propter hoc_.
Unhappily for the scientific study of diseases, the universal
interference of ART _in an active form_ renders it difficult to meet
with _pure specimens_ of corporeal maladies; and, consequently, it is
often difficult to say whether it is nature or art that must be credited
for the event. This is a positive misfortune, in a scientific point of
view. Now, as there can be no qu