[IX] Records of Circuit Court of Justiciary, holden at Dumfries May 3, 1709.
[X] "Habit and repute" is a very dangerous doctrine of the law of Scotland, at that time in full force, by which a man might be hanged altho' hardly any charge were exhibited against him, but that he had a bad character. For instance, if a man was charged with stealing a pair of old shoes, value threepence, and with being "habit and repute" a thief, if the jury found such indictment proved, or such prisoner guilty, the Court would by law be bound to sentence the prisoner to be hanged; if my temerity may be pardoned, for supposing that any such thing exists as a precise established rule of criminal law in Scotland.
[XI] It is no small disappointment to me that I cannot lay this trial before the reader. The Sheriff Court books of the county of Sutherland were carried off by the Sheriff Clerk about 1735. I am somewhat however consoled for my disappointment, by the politeness shown me by James Traill, Esq. of Hobbister, Advocate, Sheriff-depute of Caithness and Sutherland, who was so obliging as to make a laborious but ineffectual search to recover the books.
[XII] Mackenzie's Criminal Trials, tit. Witchcraft.
[XIII] Records of Justiciary, June 24. 1596. When Alison Balfour was accused of witchcraft, she was put in the caspie-claws, where she was kept forty-eight hours; her husband was put in heavy irons, her son put in the boots, where he suffered fifty-seven strokes, and her little daughter, of about seven years of age, put in the pilniewinks, in her presence, in order to make her confess.—She did confess.—She retracted her confession in the course of the trial; and publickly, at her execution, declared that the confession was extorted from her by the torments.—The mode of tormenting and executing those miserable women is further illustrated by the authentic account of the expence of burning a witch at Burncastle, near Lauder, A.D. 1649.
[XIV] Fountainhall's Decisions, vol. 1. p. 60. October 9. 1679.
END OF VOL. II.
THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN.