ury could do no less than acquit her."

This was, during the period, the one trial in or near London of which we
have details. There can be no doubt that the courts in London and the
vicinity were beginning to ignore cases of witchcraft. After 1670 there
were no more trials of the sort in Middlesex.

The reader will remember that Justice North had questioned the equity of
Justice Raymond's decision at Exeter. He has told us the story of a
trial at Taunton-Dean, where he himself had to try a witch.[32] A
ten-year-old girl, who was taking strange fits and spitting out pins,
was the witness against an old man whom she accused of bewitching her.
The defendant made "a Defence as orderly and well expressed as I ever
heard spoke." The judge then asked the justice of the peace who had
committed the man his opinion. He said that he believed the girl,
"doubling herself in her Fit, as being convulsed, bent her Head down
close to her Stomacher, and with her Mouth, took Pins out of the Edge of
that, and then, righting herself a little, spit them into some
By-stander's Hands." "The Sum of it was Malice, Threatening, and
Circumstances of Imposture in the Girl." As the judge went downstairs
after the man had been acquitted, "an hideous old woman" cried to him,
"My Lord, Forty Years ago they would have hang'd me for a Witch, and
they could not; and now they would have hang'd my poor Son."

The five cases we have cited, while not so celebrated as those on the
other side, were quite as representative of what was going on in
England. It is to be regretted that we have not the records by which to
compute the acquittals of this period. In a large number of cases where
we have depositions we have no statement of the outcome. This is
particularly true of Yorkshire. As has been pointed out in the earlier
part of the chapter, we can be sure that most of these cases were
dismissed or were never brought to trial.

When we come to the question of the forms of evidence presented during
this period, we have a story that has been told before. Female juries,
convulsive children or child pretenders, we have met them all before.
Two or three differences may nevertheless be noted. The use of spectral
evidence was becoming increasingly common. The spectres, as always,
assumed weird forms. Nicholas Rames's wife (at Longwitton, in the north)
saw Elizabeth Fenwick and the Devil dancing together.[33] A sick boy in
Cornwall saw a "Woman in a blue Jerkin and