Note 53 — Chapter II · THE WONDERFUL FORMS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.
Reading edition
In all ages, it has been a prevalent superstition, that those endowed with magical qualities will not sink in water, encouraged, no doubt, by the cunning of those who might wish to make the charge a means of wreaking their vengeance. If they sank, they were to be deemed innocent, but if they floated, they were deemed guilty, and handed over to the strong arm of the law.