le brutality, continued dragging the wretches through a pool of
water till the woman lost her life. A brute in human form, who had
superintended the murder, went among the spectators, and requested money
for the sport he had shown them! The life of the other victim was with
great difficulty saved. Three men were tried for their share in this
inhuman action. Only one of them, named Colley, was condemned and
hanged. When he came to execution, the rabble, instead of crowding round
the gallows as usual, stood at a distance, and abused those who were
putting to death, they said, an honest fellow for ridding the parish of
an accursed witch. This abominable murder was committed July 30, 1751.

The repetitition of such horrors, the proneness of the people to so
cruel and heart-searing a superstition, was traced by the legislature to
its source, namely, the yet unabolished statute of James I. Accordingly,
by the 9th George II. cap. 5, that odious law, so long the object of
horror to all ancient and poverty-stricken females in the kingdom, was
abrogated, and all criminal procedure on the subject of sorcery or
witchcraft discharged in future throughout Great Britain; reserving for
such as should pretend to the skill of fortune-tellers, discoverers of
stolen goods, or the like, the punishment of the correction-house, as
due to rogues and vagabonds. Since that period witchcraft has been
little heard of in England, and although the belief in its existence has
in remote places survived the law that recognised the evidence of the
crime, and assigned its punishment--yet such faith is gradually becoming
forgotten since the rabble have been deprived of all pretext to awaken
it by their own riotous proceedings. Some rare instances have occurred
of attempts similar to that for which Colley suffered; and I observe one
is preserved in that curious register of knowledge, Mr. Hone's "Popular
Amusements," from which it appears that as late as the end of last
century this brutality was practised, though happily without loss of
life.

The Irish statute against witchcraft still exists, as it would seem.
Nothing occurred in that kingdom which recommended its being formally
annulled; but it is considered as obsolete, and should so wild a thing
be attempted in the present day, no procedure, it is certain, would now
be permitted to lie upon it.

If anything were wanted to confirm the general proposition that the
epidemic terror of witchcraft increase