ABSTINENCE FROM FOOD. Long fasting, or the power of refraining altogether from food for years, has been frequently the subject of imposition. The case of _Anne Moore_, of Tetbury, must be in the recollection of all our readers[572]; and in the _Philosophical Transactions_ two cases are recorded, in one of which a man is said to have taken nothing but water for eighteen years, with now and then during a certain period of the year, a draught of clarified honey; but the case which has excited public interest in the greatest degree, is that of _Elizabeth Canning_, (_for whose trial, see_ 10 _Harg. St. Tri._ 205, _and_ 19 _Howel St. Tri._ 262) who, among other circumstances, pretended that she had been confined in a loft from Tuesday the 2d of January at four o’clock, A. M. until Monday the 29th, at four P. M. and that during this period she had had no sustenance, except about twenty-four pieces of bread to the amount of a quartern loaf, a penny mince-pye, and between three or four quarts of water; and yet that on the 28th day she made her escape by jumping out of the window, and walked twelve miles in six hours without taking food.[573] This story, incredible as it may appear, was actually believed by many persons, and popular clamour rose to a most indecent height; bills of indictment were preferred, and libels circulated without example either as to number or virulence; and _Mary Squires_, an unfortunate old gipsey, was condemned to death for the robbery charged to have been committed previous to this alleged, wanton imprisonment of the impostress _Canning_. One of the most interesting points in the evidence of these trials, (for there were several on different grounds,) was derived from the inspection of the linen of the impostress by an ingenious midwife, (19 _How. St. Tri._ 428) who observed that in twenty-eight days a menstrual period would probably have occurred, and yet there was no vestige of such an event to be traced on the linen; thus may physiological circumstances often elucidate points apparently remote from medical cognizance.