gyrations through the towns of Germany and the Netherlands, therefore, were made the subject of priestly exorcisms. They were forcibly dragged to the shrines of St John or St Vitus, where, by means of masses and religious ceremonies, the evil spirits were believed to be cast out. In regard to St Vitus in particular, the priests invented a legend that the holy youth had prayed to be protected from the Dancing Mania, and lo! an answer from heaven--” Vitus, thy prayer is accepted.” Thus, for all time, had the martyred St Vitus become patron saint of all who were afflicted with chorea, just as St Martin of Tours was the patron of all who suffered from small-pox. It was not until the sixteenth century, the writer said, that the physicians had made any attempt to take the dire disease scientifically in hand. One thing was absolutely certain--the deep-seated inclination of morbidly imaginative persons to imitate the afflictions of others. In the language of the _British Medical Journal_, “Such attacks themselves were, as in all nervous complaints, the almost necessary crises of an inward morbid condition which was transferred from the sensorium to the nerves of motion.” On the medical aspect of the modern outbreak it is unnecessary to dwell. Two significant circumstances, however, may be noticed. Ample authority was given for the statement that in the Middle Ages the Dancing Plague had always been most prevalent in the month of June; and, secondly, had wrought its greatest ravages among shoemakers, tailors, and others who led a confined or sedentary life. Thus it came about that those Londoners who were under no compulsion to remain in town, reading these articles, developed the greatest urgency in leaving it. Ere midsummer day had passed, scenes at the great railway stations became quite amazing. Piles of luggage blocked the platforms, bribes to secure seats were offered freely to the railway men, and though enormous exertions were made to cope with the outgoing traffic, the congestion became almost unmanageable. The scenes enacted at Victoria, Waterloo, and London Bridge in particular were such as had not been known in the whole history of English railways. The haste and extent of these departures involved incomplete arrangements for the protection of vast numbers of London houses and of the property that they contained. Burglaries, and even daylight robberies became frequent and daring. It was observed that the victims of these impudent thieves were mostly those whose names were not in the lists of subscribing members of the League; and, whether justly or unjustly, most of the burglaries and robberies with violence chronicled in the daily press were connected with the operations of that much-feared and ever-increasing association.