Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1877 — Witchcraft in Algiers. [ARTICLE]

Witchcraft in Algiers.

The curious trial of an Arab for the crime of murder in the French courts of Algiers is an illustration of the difficulties which a civilized race must always find in its attempts to be just to a primitive people. In this particular instance, All Ben Athar was charged with the murder and mutilation of a woman named Fatima. He made no attempt to deny the chargenay, he justified his action, and when he was condemned to death, he said, “ It was written! ” Be had done what the belief of his class and race told him was right and proper; but in the book of fate it was graven that the French courts would take a different view of his conduct. Ali Ben Athar had long been on affectionate terms with Fatima, who was the widow of his uncle. But the time came when Ali' thought of marriage, and Fatima did not hear the news of his engagement with resignation. She declared that she would bewitch him unless he promised to wed her, and Ali, like many a peasant in England who has displeased some harmless Old woman, at once discovered that, in ‘ point of fact, he was bewkehed. T . Ali was obliged to come to Fatima-te help him. ‘ ‘What my right hand has (Jone my left hand will undo,” said Fatima, ‘‘out yon. must really marry me, so go forth and slay a lamb, and we will make our wedding feast in the house of my father.”' Athar did not see the matter is this light, but he grew worse and worse, till he was like to share the fateof the too imaginative New Zealander. In this strait he returned to Fatima, who now exElained the nature of the charm by which c was to be restored to his usual rude health. Nor could he marry Fatima with much satisfaction after the cha/m, for, alas! before her left hand could undo the elfknots, the laws of magic decreed thatshe must sacrifice three of her teeth. If Ali did not care for Fatima as she was, he was still less likely to adore her when she had reduced herself to the condition of poor Fatima in the novel. With sterling good sense, too, she declined to make the alarming sacrifice till he had led her to hymeneal altar. At last, one night, in the fig-garden of Mohammed-an-Kwei, Ali lost his temper, and, as Fatima still declared that he must either ” peak and pipe” or marry her without her front teeth, he stabbed her to the heart. He then robbed the dead woman of her teeth and a lock of her hair. He has been sentenced to die for a crime common, or common not long ago, in remote parts of India, namely, witch-killing.— London Timet.