BURNING ANIMALS ALIVE. HERE can be no doubt but that a belief
prevailed, until a very recent period, amongst the small farmers
in the districts' remote from towns, in Cornwall, that a living
sacrifice appeased the wrath of God. This sacrifice must be by
fire; and I have heard it argued that the Bible gave them
warranty for this belief. The accompanying notes, from Hone's
"Every-Day Book," and from Drew and Hitchen's "Cornwall," prove
the prevalence--at least at the commencement of this century--of
this idea. I have lately been informed that within the last few
years a calf has been thus sacrificed by a farmer, in a district
where churches, chapels, and schools abound. The burning of
blood, drawn from a deceased animal, has been a very common mode
of appeasing the spirits of disease. "There are too many obvious
traces of the fact to doubt its truth, that the making of
bonfires, and the leaping through them, are vestiges of the
ancient worship of the heathen god Bal; and therefore it is,
with propriety, that th