Still witches were evils; and proof of evil is what the law
seeks to enable evil's suppression. Now and again one of these short-cut
gentry, by some railroad system of mental calculation, discovered certain
external marks or moles that at a glance betrayed "the secret, dark, and
midnight hags;" and the witch-finding process was instantaneously
established. The outward and visible sign of their misdeeds authorised the
further proceeding necessary for the clear proof of their delinquencies:
thus the pinchings, beatings, starvings, trials, hangings, and burnings
were made the goal of the shortest of all imaginable short cuts; and old
women who had established pin manufactories in the stomachs of thousands,
instead of receiving patents for their inventions, divided the honour of
illuminating the land with the blazing tar-barrels provided for their
peculiar use and benefit. Whether it was that aerial gambols on unsaddled
and rough-backed broomsticks grew tiresome, or the small profit attending
the vocation became smaller, or that all the elderly ladies with moles,
and without anything else, were burnt up, we can't pretend to say; but
certain it is, the art of witchcraft fell into disrepute. Corking,
minikin, and all description of pins, were obliged to be made in the
regular way; and cows even departed this world without the honour of the
human immolations formerly considered the necessary sacrifice for the loss
of their inestimable lives.
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