ould, she was accounted guilty. It was thought that witches
could not weep more than three tears, and those only from the left eye.
Thus the conscious innocence of many persons, which gave them fortitude to
bear unmerited torture without flinching, was construed by their
unmerciful tormentors into proofs of guilt. In some districts the test
resorted to was to weigh the culprit against the church Bible. If the
suspected witch proved heavier than the Bible, she was set at liberty.
This mode was far too humane for the witch-finders by profession. Hopkins
always maintained that the most legitimate modes were pricking and
swimming.

Hopkins used to travel through his counties like a man of consideration,
attended by his two assistants, always putting up at the chief inn of the
place, and always at the cost of the authorities. His charges were twenty
shillings a town, his expenses of living while there, and his carriage
thither and back. This he claimed whether he found witches or not. If he
found any, he claimed twenty shillings a head in addition when they were
brought to execution. For about three years he carried on this infamous
trade, success making him so insolent and rapacious that high and low
became his enemies. The Rev. Mr. Gaul, a clergyman of Houghton, in
Huntingdonshire, wrote a pamphlet impugning his pretensions, and accusing
him of being a common nuisance. Hopkins replied in an angry letter to the
functionaries of Houghton, stating his intention to visit their town; but
desiring to know whether it afforded many such sticklers for witchcraft as
Mr. Gaul, and whether they were willing to receive and entertain him with
the customary hospitality, if he so far honoured them. He added, by way of
threat, that in case he did not receive a satisfactory reply, "he would
waive their shire altogether, and betake himself to such places where he
might do and punish, not only without control, but with thanks and
recompense." The authorities of Houghton were not much alarmed at this
awful threat of letting them alone. They very wisely took no notice either
of him or his letter.

Mr. Gaul describes in his pamphlet one of the modes employed by Hopkins,
which was sure to swell his revenues very considerably. It was a proof
even more atrocious than the swimming. He says, that the "Witch-finder
General" used to take the suspected witch and place her in the middle of a
room, upon a stool or table, cross-legged, or in some other une