[We believe the last case of burning for witchcraft was at Bury St.
Edmunds in 1664, tried by Sir Matthew Hale, although some accounts
state that the victims, Amy Duny and Rose Callender, were executed. In
the same year Alice Hudson was burnt at York for having received 10s.
at a time from his Satanic majesty. The last case of burning in
Scotland was in Sutherland, A.D. 1722: the judge was Captain David
Ross, of Little Dean. At Glarus, in Ireland, a servant girl was burnt
so late as 1786. The last authenticated instance of the swimming ordeal
occurred in 1785, and is quoted by Mr. Sternberg from a _Northampton
Mercury_ of that year:--"A poor woman named Sarah Bradshaw, of Mears
Ashby, who was accused of being a witch, in order to prove her
innocence, submitted to the ignominy of being dipped, when she
immediately sunk to the bottom of the pond, which was deemed to be an
incontestable proof that she was no witch!"]
_The Small City Companies._--Where does the fullest information appear
respecting their early condition, &c.? Herbert's work only occasionally
refers to them, and I am aware of many incidental notices of them in
Histories of London, &c.; but it does not amount to much, and I should be
glad to know if there is no fuller account of them. The companies of
Pewterers or Bakers, for example.