Praying a Child to Death March 22, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This is particularly strange case from 1893. We are in the far north east of England, but in an urban area and not one particularly associated with witchcraft. Difficult to interpret this in any way: mental illness does not work (easily) because there were two miscreants. Help gratefully received.
At the South Shields Police Court, on Monday, two women named Aby Lucas and Margaret Stokell were charged with assaulting Margaret Henderson. Mr. Hannay, who prosecuted, said that for some time past the defendants seemed to have been possessed of a strange notion to the effect that the complainant wished the death of certain child, and they said that the complainant had prayed that the child might die. As a matter of fact, the child was accidentally killed by being run over by a tram-car three weeks ago and the defendants appeared to think that it was killed owing to the complainant’s influence.
Just to be clear then Lucas and Stokell were convinced that Henderson was casting or willing some kind of curse on an unnamed child, presumably connected with them. The child was killed in a freak accident. Had they evolved this belief since the killing or had it predated the tram accident: in which case extreme actions become more understandable?
Saturday evening, July 3, the two defendants suddenly came upon Henderson, and whilst Lucas caught hold of her by the hair of the head, the other belaboured her about the head, face, and body, and the complainant had suffered considerable pain in consequence. The complainant corroborated this statement, and in reply to the Bench, said that when the child was killed she was in no way near it. The defendants said that Henderson commenced the disturbance, and called witnesses to that effect. The latter said they ‘did not think that Mrs. Henderson had anything to do with the death of the child.’ The Bench discharged the defendants.
A clue to this incident might appear in the title of the article, where it is noted that the women tried to ‘pray the child to death’. There is a British (and above all a Welsh tradition) of praying for the death or the curse of someone, typically on bare knees before the man or woman to be cursed. The prayer is very much directed towards God to the ends of justice. South Shields is, however, a long way though from Wales and this was a child who will hardly have offended against God or, Beach suspects, Lucas and Stokell. Any ideas? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com We are all out.
