small at birth, that she was readily put into a quart measure; and for some
time, lay in a basket before the fire "wrapped in a flannel like a newly
hatched chicken."

2. The improbability of finding any living gossip who was present at the
birth, must be obvious: but I have conversed with old women who had heard
their mothers describe the occurrence from personal knowledge.

3. One ancient dame had no more doubt of the fact than the cause of it.
Having apparently heard and believed a monstrous tradition of a
multitudinous gestation extant in common "folklore." "It was," said she,
with all gravity, "the effect of a wish," intended to spite the father;
who, having had two children by his wife, and an interval of _nine years_
elapsing before the portentous pregnancy in question, did not desire, it
seems, any further increase to his family.

4. The parents died, the daughter married, and the "story of her birth" was
forgotten: until the publication of White's _Sheffield Directory_ in 1833,
when, among other local memorabilia, the strange announcement of "ten
children at birth," was reproduced on the contemporary authority of the
_Leeds Mercury_. From that time Mrs. Platts has been more or less an object
of curiosity.

5. The _Directory_ paragraph is as follows:--

"An instance of _extraordinary fecundity_ is recorded in the _Leeds
Mercury_ of 1781, which says that _Ann_ [Sarah] _Birch_, of Sheffield,
was, in that year, _delivered of ten children!!!_ We, in our time, have
heard of Sheffield ladies having three children at birth; but we know
no other case, but that of the aforesaid Mrs. Birch, which countenances