thousand were burned within one
year. Nine hundred were burned in Lorraine in a period of fifteen
years. Hundreds perished at Wurzburg in a few years; and upwards of
one hundred thousand were executed in Germany, for which country the
_malleus maleficarum_, or hammer for witches (drawn out by a clergyman
and two inquisitors appointed by Innocent VIII.), was principally
intended. In Poland and America, witches, or supposed witches, were
also put to death by fire and water. Persecutions against witches
raged with great fury in America in 1648-49. In New England, in 1692,
nine persons were hanged by the Puritans for witchcraft. Under
pressure, fifty persons there confessed themselves to be witches.
Italy, Spain, and Portugal had their victims too. At one period the
execution of witches exceeded those in England, though the number put
to death in the latter country was truly appalling. In 1646 two
hundred persons were tried and executed for witchcraft at the Sussex
and Essex assizes. The last persons put to death for witchcraft in
England were, some say, in 1664, while others assert the last victims
suffered in 1682. The latest instance of a witch being executed in
Scotland was in 1722, when the supposed offender was burned at Loth,
or Dornoch, Sutherlandshire, by order of the sheriff of that county.
In more recent times than several of the dates to which we have
referred, discoveries, which might have been easily understood, gave
rise to the supposition that the actors were in compact with the
devil. On the first occasion of the German printers carrying their
books to France, the ingenious inventors of printing were condemned to
be burned alive as sorcerers--a sentence that would have been executed
had those discoverers of a useful art not saved themselves by flight.

Reginald Scot, taking an enlightened view of superstition, says, "The
fables of witchcraft have taken so fast hold of and deep root in the
heart of man, that few endure the hand of correction without
attributing the chastisement to the influence of witches. Such
superstitious people," he says, "are persuaded that neither hail nor
snow, thunder nor lightning, rain nor tempestuous winds, come from the
higher powers, but are raised by the power of witches and conjurors.
If a clap of thunder or a gale of wind be heard, the timid people ring
bells, cry out to burn the witches, or else they burn consecrated
things, hoping thereby to drive the devil out of the air.