Many of the ringleaders in the outrage were apprehended
during the week, and tried before the justices at quarter-sessions. Two
of them were sentenced to stand in the pillory and to be imprisoned for
a month; and as many as twenty more were fined in small sums for the
assault, and bound over to keep the peace for a twelvemonth.

"So late as the year 1785," says Arnot, in his collection and
abridgment of Criminal Trials in Scotland, "it was the custom among the
sect of Seceders to read from the pulpit an annual confession of sins,
national and personal; amongst the former of which was particularly
mentioned the 'Repeal by Parliament of the penal statute against
witches, contrary to the express laws of God.'"

Many houses are still to be found in England with the horse-shoe (the
grand preservative against witchcraft) nailed against the threshold. If
any over-wise philosopher should attempt to remove them, the chances
are that he would have more broken bones than thanks for his
interference. Let any man walk into Cross-street, Hatton-Garden, and
from thence into Bleeding-heart Yard, and learn the tales still told
and believed of one house in that neighbourhood, and he will ask
himself in astonishment if such things can be in the nineteenth
century. The witchcraft of Lady Hatton, the wife of the famous Sir
Christopher, so renowned for his elegant dancing in the days of
Elizabeth, is as devoutly believed as the Gospels. The room is to be
seen where the devil seized her after the expiration of the contract he
had made with her, and bore her away bodily to the pit of Tophet: the
pump against which he dashed her is still pointed out, and the spot
where her heart was found, after he had torn it out of her bosom with
his iron claws, has received the name of Bleeding-heart Yard, in
confirmation of the story. Whether the horse-shoe still remains upon
the door of the haunted house, to keep away other witches, is
uncertain; but there it was, twelve or thirteen years ago. The writer
resided at that time in the house alluded to, and well remembers that
more than one old woman begged for admittance repeatedly, to satisfy
themselves that it was in its proper place. One poor creature,
apparently insane, and clothed in rags, came to the door with a
tremendous double-knock, as loud as that of a fashionable footman, and
walked straight along the passage to the horse-shoe. Great was the
wonderment of the inmates, especially when the woman