positive, and there wants only the confession of
the party accused. Yet this practice of torturing does not
appear to have been used in the island for some ages, except
in the case of witches, when it was too frequently applied,
near a century since. The custom then was, when any person
was supposed guilty of sorcery or witchcraft, they carried
them to a place in the town called _La Tour Beauregard_, and
there, tying their hands behind them by the two thumbs, drew
them to a certain height with an engine made for that
purpose, by which means sometimes their shoulders were
turned round; and sometimes their thumbs torn off; but this
fancy of witches has for some years been laid aside.

It will be noticed in the subsequent _Confessions_ of witches (page
11, &c.), that a number of colons (:) are inserted in the text where
they would not be required as ordinary marks of punctuation. These
correspond, however, to similar pauses in the original records, and
evidently indicate the successive stages by which the story was wrung
from the wretched victims. They are thus endowed with a sad and
ghastly significance, which must be borne in mind when the confessions
are read. It must also be remembered that these confessions were not
usually made in the connected form in which they stand recorded, but
were rather the result of leading questions put by the inquisitors,
such as: How old were you when the Devil first appeared to you? What
form did he assume? What parish were you in? What were you doing? &c.,
&c.

Melancholy and revolting as all this is, yet the tortures made use of
in Guernsey were far from possessing those refinements of cruelty and
that intensity of brutality which characterised the methods practiced
in some other countries. Let us take as a proof of this, the notable
case of Dr. Fian and his associates, who were tried at Edinburgh, in
the year 1591. The evidence was of the usual ridiculous kind, and a
confession--afterwards withdrawn--was extorted by the following
blood-curdling barbarities, as is quoted by Mr. C.K. Sharpe, in his
_Historical Account of the Belief in Witchcraft in Scotland_:--

The said Doctor was taken and imprisoned, and used with the
accustomed paine provided for those offences inflicted upon
the rest, as is aforesaid. First, by thrawing of his head
with a rope, whereat he would confesse nothing. Secondly, he
was pe