The Book of Cats, 177 



five ranks : — Children, fools, women, cowards, sick 

 or black melancholic discomposed wits." 



Many hundreds of poor old women, and many a 

 Cat, were sacrificed to the zealous Master Hopkins, 

 for Cats and Kittens were frequently said to be 

 imps, who had taken that form. However, he was 

 not the only scoundrel who made witch-finding a 

 trade. 



In Syke's Local Recorder, mention is made of a 

 Scotchman, who pretended great powers of dis- 

 covering witchcraft, and was engaged by the towns- 

 m*en of Newcastle to practise there ; and one man 

 and fifteen women were hanged by him. But he 

 ultimately shared, as Hopkins did, the cruel fate 

 he had awarded to so many others. " When the 

 witch-finder had done in Newcastle, and received 

 his wages, he went into Northumberland to try 

 women there, and got three pounds a-piece ; but 

 Henry Doyle, Esq., laid hold on him, and required 

 bond of him to answer at the Sessions. He 

 escaped into Scotland, where he was made prisoner, 

 indicted, arraigned, and condemned for such-like 

 villany exercised in Scotland, and confessed at the 

 gallows that he had been the death of above two 

 hundred and twenty women in England and Scot- 

 land." 



N 



