Whatever little effect the charms
might produce, they were successful in their principal object, for
the person in question carried on for some time a criminal
intercourse with both. The matter came to the knowledge of the
husbands, who, taking means to break off this connection, were
respectively poisoned by their wives. Till the moment of
conviction these wretched females betrayed neither emotion nor
fear, but then their consternation was indescribable; and they
afterwards confessed that the Gypsy, who had visited them in
prison, had promised to shield them from conviction by means of her
art. It is therefore not surprising that in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, when a belief in sorcery was supported by the
laws of all Europe, these people were regarded as practisers of
sorcery, and punished as such, when, even in the nineteenth, they
still find people weak enough to place confidence in their claims
to supernatural power.
The accusation of producing disease and death amongst the cattle
was far from groundless. Indeed, however strange and incredible it
may sound in the present day to those who are unacquainted with
this caste, and the peculiar habits of the Rommanees, the practice
is still occasionally pursued in England and many other countries
where they are found.
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