The facts of the case are simply these: James Mahony who lives on the demesne of Heywood, the property of Charles Riall, Esq. had a son of the age of six or seven, a delicate child. The boy had been confined to bed for two years with an affection of the spine, and being a very intellectual child, and accustomed to make the most shrewd remarks about every thing he saw and heard passing around him, his parents and the neighbours were led to the conclusion that he was not the son of his father, but that he was a fairy! Under this impression, a consultation took place at the house of Mahoney, and the result was, that the intruder from the ‘Good People’ should be frightened away; and, accordingly, on Tuesday night last, the poor dying child was threatened with a red hot shovel and a ducking under a pump, if he did not disclose where the real John Mahoney was; the feeble child, after being held near the hot shovel, and after having been taken a part of the way to the pump, told them he was a fairy, and that he would send back John Mahoney the next evening, if they gave him that night’s lodgings. This occurred on Tuesday night last, and the child was dead the next morning […] Mr Nash. Such a case of ignorance, cruelty, and superstition, should be exposed before the world. Dr John Smith deposed that the child was in a debilitated state for some time before its death; that it laboured under a curvature of the spine, and the debility produced by the affection caused death. The jury after deliberating for about 20 minutes, returned a verdict of ‘Died by the visitation of God’’. Anon, ‘Extraordinary Case of Gross Superstition’,1840