The girl was immediately thrown into a fit, and continued in it, with the most violent convulsions, for twenty-four hours.

On the following day three more girls were seized in the same manner, and on the 17th six more.

By this time the alarm was so great that the whole work, in which 200 or 300 were employed, was totally stopped, and an idea prevailed that a particular disease had been introduced by a bag of cotton opened in the house.

On Sunday the 18th, Dr.St.Clare was sent for from Preston; before he arrived three more were seized, and during that night and the morning of the 19th, eleven more, making in all twenty-four.

Of these, twenty-one were young women, two were girls of about ten years of age, and one man, who had been much fatigued with holding the girls.