most of the
sisterhood, display extraordinary affection for the blood of
new-born unbaptized infants; and it is a great desideratum to
kill them before the preventive rite has been irrevocably
administered; for the bodies of unbaptized children were almost
indispensable in the witches' preparations. Soon as buried their
corpses are dug out of their graves and carried away to the place
of assembly, where they are boiled down for the fat for making
the ointments.[103] The liquid in which they are boiled is
carefully preserved; and the person who tastes it is immediately
initiated into all the mysteries of sorcery. A witch, judicially
examined by the papal commission which compiled the 'Malleus,'
gives evidence of the prevalence of this practice: 'We lie in
wait for children. These are often found dead by their parents;
and the simple people believe that they have themselves overlain
them, or that they died from natural causes; but it is we who
have destroyed them. We steal them out of the grave, and boil
them with lime till all the flesh is loosed from the bones and is
reduced to one mass. We make of the firm part an ointment, and
fill a bottle with the fluid; and whoever drinks with due
ceremonies of this belongs to our league, and is already capable
of bewitching.' 'Finger of birth-strangled babe' is one of the
ingredients of that widely-collected composition of the Macbeth
witches.

[103] A practice not entirely out of repute at the present
day if we may credit a statement in the _Courrier du Havre_
(as quoted in _The Times_ newspaper, Nov. 7, 1864), that
recently the corpse of an old woman was dug up for the
purpose of obtaining the fat, &c., as a preventive charm
against witchcraft, by a person living in the neighbourhood
of Havre.

The case at Warboys, which, connected with a family of some
distinction, occasioned unusual interest, was tried in the year
1593. The village of Warboys, or Warbois, is situated in the
neighbourhood of Huntingdon. One of the most influential of
the inhabitants was a gentleman of respectability, Robert
Throgmorton, who was on friendly terms with the Cromwells of
Hitchinbrook, and the lord of the manor, Sir Henry Cromwell.
Three criminals--old Samuel, his wife, and Agnes Samuel their
daughter, were tried and condemned by Mr. Justice Fenner for
bewitching Mr. Throgmorton's five children, seven servants, the
Lady Cromwell, and others. The father and daughter maintained
th