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NOVEL USE FOR THE BIBLE.--At the Norwich assizes, on Wednesday, the case of Creak _v._ Smith was tried. It was an action for slander, the slanderous words imputed to the defendant being as follows:--'You are the thief, and no other man. You have robbed the fatherless and the motherless, and got in at the window. I can prove it by the turn of the Bible.' One of the witnesses for the plaintiff explained what was meant by the expression, 'I'll prove it by the turn of the Bible.' He said that the defendant had told him that a friend of his, having asked him whether he had ever heard anything about the Bible being turned, bade him come to his house and he would show him what it was. That evening, when this person went home, he told his wife what he had said to defendant, and she went through the ceremony, which was done by holding a Bible by a string, twisting it round, and as it was turning calling out the names of all in the house until she came to the plaintiff's name last of all, when it turned round the other way, showing that he was the guilty man. This ceremony was performed by her a second time by the husband's bedside, with the same triumphant result.--The jury gave a verdict for 20s. damages.
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Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall,