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by PHILIP K. DICK

It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it; I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known; I'm not the first to discover it. Maybe it's even under control.

I was sitting in my easy-chair, idly turning the pages of a paperbacked book someone had left on the bus, when I came across the reference that first put me on the trail. For a moment I didn't respond. It took some time for the full import to sink in. After I'd comprehended, it seemed odd I hadn't noticed it right away.

The reference was clearly to a nonhuman species of incredible properties, not indigenous to Earth. A species, I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything--and was taking it in his stride. The line read:

Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not; they seemed to move through the air, not over the surface. Rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That's what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified.

There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own. My heart pounded and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race. Obviously non-Terrestrial. Yet, to the characters in the book, it was perfectly natural--which suggested they belonged to the same species.

Great Scott! But here the girl turned and stomped off and the matter ended. I lay back in my chair gasping with horror. My wife and family regarded me in wonder.

"What's wrong, dear?" my wife asked.

I couldn't tell her. Knowledge like this was too much for the ordinary run-of-the-mill person. I had to keep it to myself. "Nothing," I gasped. I leaped up, snatched the book, and hurried out of the room.

In the garage, I continued reading. There was more. Trembling, I read the next revealing passage:

It's not said what was done with the arm after the fellow had removed it. Maybe it was left standing upright in the corner. Maybe it was thrown away. I don't care. In any case, the full meaning was there, staring me right in the face.

Here was a race of creatures capable of removing portions of their anatomy at will. Eyes, arms--and maybe more. Without batting an eyelash. My knowledge of biology came in handy, at this point. Obviously they were simple beings, uni-cellular, some sort of primitive single-celled things. Beings no more developed than starfish. Starfish can do the same thing, you know.

I read on. And came to this incredible revelation, tossed off coolly by the author without the faintest tremor:

Binary fission, obviously. Splitting in half and forming two entities. Probably each lower half went to the cafe, it being farther, and the upper halves to the movies. I read on, hands shaking. I had really stumbled onto something here. My mind reeled as I made out this passage:

Which was followed by:

Yet Bibney got around as well as the next person. The next person, however, was just as strange. He was soon described as:

There was no doubt of the thing in the next passage. Julia, whom I had thought to be the one normal person, reveals herself as also being an alien life form, similar to the rest:

It didn't relate what the final disposition of the organ was, but I didn't really care. It was evident Julia had gone right on living in her usual manner, like all the others in the book. Without heart, arms, eyes, brains, viscera, dividing up in two when the occasion demanded. Without a qualm.

I sickened. The rascal now had her hand, as well as her heart. I shudder to think what he's done with them, by this time.

Not content to wait, he had to start dismantling her on his own. Flushing crimson, I slammed the book shut and leaped to my feet. But not in time to escape one last reference to those carefree bits of anatomy whose travels had originally thrown me on the track:

I rushed from the garage and back inside the warm house, as if the accursed things were following me. My wife and children were playing Monopoly in the kitchen. I joined them and played with frantic fervor, brow feverish, teeth chattering.

I had had enough of the thing. I want to hear no more about it. Let them come on. Let them invade Earth. I don't want to get mixed up in it.

I have absolutely no stomach for it.

E'en Guthrie spares half Newgate by a dash,

sneers Pope, referring to an alleged habit of merely giving initials. I have turned over a fair number of the Reverend James Guthrie's accounts of criminals. In those he always writes the name in full. The witty though himself forgotten Tom Brown scribbles the epitaph of the Reverend Samuel Smith, another Ordinary:--

And there were the Reverend Thomas Purney, and the Reverend John Villette, but these be well-nigh empty names. We know most about the Reverend Paul Lorrain, who was appointed in 1698, and died in 1719, leaving the respectable fortune of ?5000. A typical Ordinary of the baser sort this; a greedy, gross, sensual wretch, who thrived and grew fat on the perquisites of his office. Among these was a broadsheet, published at eight o'clock the morning after a hanging. It was headed, "The Ordinary of Newgate, his Account of the Behaviour, Confessions, and Last Speeches of the Malefactors who were executed at Tyburn, the--." It gave the names and sentences of the convicts, copious notes of the sermons he preached at them, biographies, and confessions, and finally the scenes at the gallows. Let the up-to-date journalist cherish Lorrain's name. He was an early specimen of the personal interviewer: he had the same keen scent for unsavoury detail, the same total disregard for the feelings or wishes of his victim, the same readiness to betray confidence; and he had his subject at such an advantage! You imagine the sanctimonious air wherewith he produced his notebook and invited the wretch's statement. With the scene at Tyburn variety in detail was impossible. "Afterwards the Cart drew away, and they were turn'd off," is his formula. You had a good twopenn'orth, such was his usual modest charge! The first page top was embellished with two cuts: on the left Old Newgate Archway, on the right Tyburn Tree. The broadsheet was authenticated by his signature.

Awhile astonished stood To count the drops of Campion's sacred blood.

After the Restoration, the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were dug up at Westminster, removed at night to the Red Lion Inn, Holborn, drawn next morning , the anniversary of Charles's death, to Tyburn, and there hanged in their shrouds on the three wooden posts of the gallows. At nightfall they were taken down and beheaded; the bodies being there buried, whilst the heads adorned Westminster Hall. Noll had his picturesque historians before Carlyle. A wild tale arose that his original funeral at the Abbey had been but a mock ceremonial; for his body, according to his own instructions, had been secretly removed to Naseby, and buried at nightfall on the scene of that victory. Even if we disregard this legend, the subsequent adventures of Cromwell's head have been a matter of as much concern to antiquaries as ever the Royal Martyr's was to Mr. Dick.

... while the rabble was bawling, Rode stately through Holborn to die in his calling; He stopped at the George for a bottle of sack, And promised to pay for it--when he came back. His waistcoat and stockings and breeches were white. His cap had a new cherry-ribbon to tie't; And the maids to the doors and the balconies ran, And cried "Lack-a-day! he's a proper young man!"

But how to summarise the infinite variety of detail? To tell how, when Claude Duval swung Ladies of Quality looked on in tears and masks; how he lay in more than royal state in Tangier Tavern, St. Giles's; and how they carved on his stone "in the centre aisle of Covent Garden Church," the pattern of a highwayman's epitaph:

Here lies Du Vall: reader, if male thou art, Look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart.

One John Austin had the distinction of being the last person executed at Tyburn . Reformers had long denounced the procession as a public scandal. The sheriffs had some doubts as to their powers; but the judges, being consulted, assured them they could end it an they would. A month after the gallows was at work in front of Newgate, and Old London lost its most exciting spectacle. Dr. Johnson frankly regretted the change:--"Executions are intended to draw spectators, if they do not draw spectators they lose their reason. The old method was more satisfactory to all parties. The public was gratified by a procession, the criminal was supported by it. Why is all this to be swept away?" In truth, the change of scene was an illogical compromise: the picturesque effect was gone--save for an occasional touch, as after Holling's execution, when the dead hand was thrust into a woman's bosom, to remove a mark or wen--the disorderly mob remained, nay, was a greater scandal at the centre than in the suburbs. Dickens is but one of many writers who knowing their London well described the unedifying walk and talk of the crowd before Newgate; and in 1868 private was substituted for public execution throughout the land. I do not criticise any system: I do but point out that of the two sets of opposing forces noted as working on the criminal's mind, the latter, in a private execution, is entirely suppressed.

Tyburn and its memories, its criminals, its Hangmen, its Ordinaries, filled a great space in popular imagination, and have frequent mention in our great writers. Shakespeare himself has "The shape of Love's Tyburn"; and Dryden's "Like thief and parson in a Tyburn cart" is a stock quotation. But I cannot string a chaplet of these pearls. Yet two phrases I must explain. A felon who "prayed his clergy" was during some centuries branded on the crown of his thumb with the letter T, ere he was released, to prevent a second use of the plea. This was called, in popular slang, the Tyburn T. Ben Jonson was so branded for killing Gabriel Spencer, the actor, in a duel. Again a statute of 1698 , provided for those who prosecuted a felon to conviction a certificate freeing them from certain parochial duties. This was known as a "Tyburn ticket." It had a certain money value, because if unused it could be assigned once. The privilege was abolished in 1827 , but it was allowed as late as 1856 to a certain Mr. Pratt, of Bond Street, who by showing his ticket escaped service on an Old Bailey jury.

Pillory and Cart's-Tail

Hood and Lamb on the Pillory--Its Various Shapes--Butcher and Baker--Brawler and Scold--Fraudulent Attorneys--End of the Pillory and of Public Whipping--Literary Martyrs--De Foe--Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton--Case of Titus Oates--The Tale of a Cart--Some Lesser Sufferers.

The Pillory was first used for dishonest bakers, brewers, corn-sellers, and the like. Then, its offices were extended to divers kinds of misdemeanants. Later, it was the lot of your scurrile pamphleteer, your libeller, and your publisher of unlicensed volumes. The victim was not always pelted; for feeling might run high against the Government; and when he was acclaimed his shame became his glory. So the thing served as a weather-glass of popular opinion.

A long list might be given of misdemeanours punished by the Pillory:--as, practising the art magick; cutting a purse; placing a piece of iron in a loaf of bread; selling bad oats, stinking eels, strawberry pottles half fall of fern; vending ale by measures not sealed and thickening the bottom of such measures with pewter. As lies, defamations, and libels of all sorts. If the lie were notorious, or were told of the mayor or any other dignitary, the liar was pilloried with a whetstone round his neck: whence it came that a whetstone was the popular reward for audacious mendacity, and "lying for the whetstone" was a current phrase.

Late Tudor and Stuart times edged and weighted the punishment of the Pillory. It might be preceded by a flogging at the Cart's-tail. Stripped to the waist, the culprit, man or woman, was tied to the hinder end of a cart, and was thus lashed through the streets. Or, as Butler's couplet reminds us, the patient's ears were nailed to the wood:--

Each window like a Pillory appears, With heads thrust through, nail'd by the ears.

The Finger Pillory deserves a word. It was fixed up inside churches and halls. Boys who misbehaved during service, and offenders at festive times against the mock reign of the lord of misrule, alike expiated their offences therein.

Earless on high stood unabash'd De Foe, And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below,

Among cases other than literary, a notable one is that of Titus Oates , who, being convicted of perjury, was sentenced to stand in the Pillory and be whipped at the Cart's-tail. The lashing was so cruelly done that you feel some pity even for that arch rascal. The curious computed that he received 2256 strokes with a whip of six thongs--13,536 strokes in all. Yet the wretch lived to enjoy a pension after the Revolution! There was another remarkable instance that same year. Thomas Dangerfield, convicted of libelling the King when Duke of York, was sentenced to a fine, to the Pillory, and to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn. The dreadful work was over, and he was returning prisonwards in a coach, when there steps forward Robert Francis, a barrister of Gray's Inn, with the cruel jibe, "How now, friend? Have you had your heat this morning?" Dangerfield turned on him with bitter curses . Francis, much enraged, thrust at the aching, smarting, bleeding wretch with a small cane, and by mischance put out an eye, so that in two hours Dangerfield was dead; and no great while thereafter he himself was tried, condemned, and hanged. According to the testimony of the Rev. Mr. Samuel Smith, Ordinary at Newgate, he made a very edifying end.

State Trials for Witchcraft

Early Laws against Witchcraft--The Essex Witches--The Devon Witches--The Bury St. Edmunds Case--Bewitched Children--The Scepticism of Serjeant Keeling--Evidence of Sir Thomas Browne--The Judge's Charge--The End of it All--The Trial of Richard Hathaway--The Comic Side of Superstition--A Rogue's Punishment--A Word in Conclusion.

I propose to examine the Witchcraft cases in Howell's twenty-one bulky volumes of State Trials. The general subject, even in England, is too vast for detailed treatment here; also it is choked with all manner of absurdities. In a trial some of these are pared away: you know what the people saw, or believed they saw, and you have the declarations of the witches themselves. Only five cases, all between 1616 and 1702 are reported. The selection is capricious, for some famous prosecutions as that of the Lancashire witches are omitted, but it is fairly representative.

I pass as of little interest Howell's first case, that of Mary Smith, in 1616. More worthy of note are the proceedings against the Essex witches, some twenty in number, condemned at the Chelmsford Sessions on July 29, 1645, before the Earl of Warwick and other Justices. One noted witch was Elizabeth Clarke to whom the devil had appeared "in the shape of a proper gentleman with a laced band, having the whole proportion of a man." She had certain imps, whom she called Jamara , Vinegar Tom, Hoult, and Sack and Sugar. So far the information of Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, gent., who further said that the same evening whereon the accused confessed those marvels to him, "he espied a white thing about the bignesse of a kitlyn," which bit a piece out of his greyhound, and in his own yard that very night "he espied a black thing proportioned like a cat, only it was thrice as big, sitting on a strawberry-bed, and fixing the eyes on this informant."

John Sterne, gent., had equal wonders of imps the size of small dogs, and how Sack and Sugar were like to do him hurt. 'Twere well, said the malevolent Elizabeth, "that this informant were so quick, otherwise the said impe had soone skipped upon his face, and perchance had got into his throate, and then there would have been a feast of toades in this informant's belly." The witch Clarke ascribed her undoing to Anne Weste, widow, here usually called Old Beldam Weste, who, coming upon her as she was picking up a few sticks, and seeming to pity her for "her lamenesse and her poverty," promised to send her a little kitten to assist her. Sure enough, a few nights after two imps appeared, who vowed to "help her to an husband who should maintain her ever after." A country justice's notions of evidence are not supposed to be exact even to-day; what they were then let the information of Robert Tayler, also of Manningtree, show. It seems Clarke had accused one Elizabeth Gooding as a confederate. Gooding was refused credit at Tayler's for half a pound of cheese, whereupon "she went away muttering and mumbling to herself, and within a few hours came again with money and bought a pound of cheese of this informant." That very night Tayler's horse fell grievously ill and four farriers were gravelled to tell what ailed it, but this portentous fact was noted: "the belly of the said horse would rumble and make a noyse as a foule chimney set on fire." In four days it was dead. Tayler had also heard that certain confessed witches had "impeached the said Elizabeth Gooding for killing of this said horse," moreover Elizabeth kept company with notorious witches--after which scepticism was scarce permissible. Rebecca Weste, a prisoner awaiting trial in Colchester, confessed how at a witches' meeting the devil appeared to her in the shape of a dog and kissed her. In less than six months he came again and promised to marry her. "Shee said he kissed her, but was as cold as clay, and married her that night in this manner: he tooke her by the hand and led her about the chamber and promised to be a loving husband to death, and to avenge her of her enemies."

One Rawbood had taken a house over the head of Margaret Moon, another of the accused, with highly unpleasant consequences. Thus, Mrs. Rawbood, though a "very tydy and cleanly woman, sitting upon a block, after dinner with another neighbour, a little before it was time to go to church upon an Easter Day, the said Rawbood's wife was on a sudden so filled with lice that they might have been swept off her clothes with a stick; and this informant saith he did see them, and that they were long and lean, and not like other lice." More gruesome were the confessions of Rebecca Jones, of Osyth. One fine day some twenty-five years past she, a servant lass at Much-Clacton, was summoned by a knock at the door, where she saw "a very handsome young man, as shee then thought, but now shee thinks it was the devil." Politely inquiring how she did, he desired to see her left wrist, which being shown him, he pulled out a pin "from this examinant's owne sleeve, and pricked her wrist twice, and there came out a drop of bloud, which he took off with the top of his finger, and so departed"--leaving poor Rebecca's heart all in a flutter. About four months afterwards as she was going to market to sell butter, a "man met with her, being in a ragged state, and having such great eyes that this examinant was very much afraid of him." He presented her with three things like to "moules," which she afterwards used to destroy her neighbours' cattle, and now and again her neighbours themselves. In evidence against other suspects there was mention of a familiar called Elimanzer, who was fed with milk pottage, and of imps called Wynowe, Jeso, Panu, with many other remarkable particulars.

The foregoing was collected before trial as information upon oath; but this testimony of Sir Thomas Bowes, knight, was given from the bench during the trial of Anne Weste, whom it concerned. He reported that an honest man of Manningtree passing Anne Weste's door at the very witching hour of night, in bright moonlight saw four things like black rabbits emerge. He caught one of them, and beat the head of it against his stick, "intending to beat out the braines of it," failing in which benevolent design, he next tried to tear off its head, "and as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out between his hands like a lock of wooll;" then he went to a spring to drown it, but at every step he fell down, yet he managed to creep to the water, under which he held the thing "a good space." Thinking it was drowned he let go, whereupon "it sprang out of the water into the aire, and so vanished away." There was but one end possible for people who froze the rustic soul with such pranks. Each and all were soon dangling from the gallows.

Between these two cases one occurred wherein the best legal intellect of the day was engaged--and with no better result. In March 1665, Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, widows, were indicted at the Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds for bewitching certain people. Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, presided. "Still his name is of account." To an earlier time he seemed a judge "whom for his integrity, learning, and law, hardly any age, either before or since, could parallel." William Durant, an infant, was one victim; his mother had promised Amy Duny a penny to watch him, but she was strictly charged not to give him suck. To what end? queried the court reflecting on Amy's age. The mother replied: firstly, Amy had the reputation of a witch, and secondly, it was a custom of old women thus to please the child, "and it did please the child, but it sucked nothing but wind, which did the child hurt." The two women had a quarrel on the subject: Amy was enraged, and departed after some dark sayings, and the boy forthwith fell into "strange fits of swounding." Dr. Jacob, of Yarmouth, an eminent witch-doctor, advised "to hang up the child's blanket in the chimney-corner all day, and at night when she put the child to bed to put it into the said blanket, and if she found anything in it she should not be afraid, but throw it into the fire." The blanket was duly hung up, and taken down, when a great toad fell out, which being thrown into the fire made "a great and horrible noise;" followed a crack and a flash, and--exit the toad! The court with solemn foolishness inquired if the substance of the toad was not seen to consume? and was stoutly answered "No." Next day Amy was discovered sitting alone in her house in her smock without any fire. She was in "a most lamentable condition," having her face all scorched with fire. This deponent had no doubt as to the witch's guilt, "for that the said Amy hath been long reputed to be a witch and a person of very evil behaviour, whose kindred and relations have been many of them accused for witchcraft, and some of them have been condemned."

Even that age had its sceptics. Some people in court, chief among them Mr. Serjeant Keeling, whose position and learning made it impossible to disregard their opinion, "seemed much unsatisfied." The learned serjeant pointed out that even if the children were bewitched, there was no real evidence to connect the prisoners with the fact. Then Dr. Browne, of Norwich, "a person of great knowledge" , made a very learned if confusing dissertation on Witchcraft in general, with some curious details as to a late "great discovery of witches" in Denmark; which no whit advanced the matter. Then there was another experiment. Amy Duny was brought to one of the children whose eyes were blinded. The child was presently touched by another person, "which produced the same effect as the touch of the witch did in the court." The sceptical Keeling and his set now roundly declared the whole business a sham, which "put the court and all persons into a stand. But at length Mr. Pacy did declare that possibly the maid might be deceived by a suspicion that the witch touched her when she did not." This was the very point the sceptics were making, and was anything but an argument in reply, though it seems to have been accepted as such. And how to suppose, it was urged, that innocent children would tell such terrible lies? It was the golden age of the rod; never was there fitter occasion for its use. Once fancies a few strokes had produced remarkable confessions from the innocents! However, the court went on hearing evidence. The judge summed up with much seeming impartiality, much wooden wisdom, and the usual judicial platitudes, all which after more than two centuries you read with considerable irritation. The jury upon half an hour's deliberation returned a verdict of guilty. Next morning the children were brought to the judge, "and Mr. Pacy did affirm that within less than half an hour after the witches were convicted they were all of them restored." After this, what place was left for doubt? "In conclusion the judge and all the court were fully satisfied with the verdict, and thereupon gave judgment against the witches that they should be hanged." Three days afterwards the poor unfortunates went to their death. "They were much urged to confess, but would not."

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