But the fact of the matter is that it is rather the minority of girls who spontaneously exhibit the traditional stigmata of the natural girl.

Mad Tom's corner, whence we get our first view of Canterbury, is intimately connected with the gate close by, called Courtenay's gate, and refers to the exploits of a mad Cornishman who came to Kent and especially to Canterbury about 1832, and presently proclaimed himself to be the New Messiah and showed to his deluded disciples the sacred stigmata in his hands and feet.

Now it was a phantom monk who had stepped out of the grave, showing the stigmata on hands and feet and the pierced side; now a nun, beautiful as the veiled figures in the Church pictures, expiating in the fires of hell mysterious sins.