r to relieve the bewitched person of
the pains she suffered, which could not be so well effected by any other
means.

A man, named Thomas Ireland, deposed, that hearing several times a great
noise of cats crying and screaming about his house, he went out and
frightened them away, and they all ran towards the cottage of Jane Wenham.
One of them he swore positively had a face very like Jane Wenham's.
Another man, named Burville, gave similar evidence, and swore that he had
often seen a cat with Jane Wenham's face. Upon one occasion he was in Ann
Thorne's chamber, when several cats came in, and among them the cat above
stated. This witness would have favoured the court with a much longer
statement, but was stopped by the judge, who said he had heard quite
enough.

The prisoner, in her defence, said nothing, but that "she was a clear
woman." The learned judge then summed up, leaving it to the jury to
determine whether such evidence as they had heard was sufficient to take
away the prisoner's life upon the indictment. After a long deliberation
they brought in their verdict, that she was guilty upon the evidence. The
judge then asked them whether they found her guilty upon the indictment of
conversing with the devil in the shape of a cat? The sapient foreman very
gravely answered, "We find her guilty of _that_." The learned judge then
very reluctantly proceeded to pass sentence of death; but, by his
persevering exertions, a pardon was at last obtained, and the wretched old
woman was set at liberty.

In the year 1716, a woman and her daughter--the latter only nine years of
age--were hanged at Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and
raising a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of
soap. This appears to have been the last judicial execution in England.
From that time to the year 1736, the populace raised at intervals the old
cry, and more than once endangered the lives of poor women by dragging
them through ponds on suspicion; but the philosophy of those who, from
their position, sooner or later give the tone to the opinions and morals
of the poor, was silently working a cure for the evil. The fear of witches
ceased to be epidemic, and became individual, lingering only in minds
fettered by inveterate prejudice or brutalising superstition. In the year
1736, the penal statute of James I. was finally blotted from the
statute-book, and suffered no longer to disgrace the advancing
intelligence of