Lancashire continued the home of such beliefs, and in the middle of King William’s reign, a place in that county called Surrey became powerfully agitated by the case of a lad, who stood upon his head, danced upon his knees, scrambled about on all fours, barked like a dog, talked shreds of Latin, ran into the water, and told things at a distance--all, it was said, the result of selling his soul to the Devil, in hopes of thereby becoming a first-rate dancer. The neighbours treated it as a real possession, and so did certain Presbyterian ministers, who appointed days of fasting and prayer on the youth’s behalf, and continued them weekly for a twelvemonth. Folks from the country flocked in to see and hear the marvels going on, and made themselves merry at the expense of the fruitless intercessors; they, in their turn, laid their want of success at the door of the boy’s family, saying the witches were in league with Satan, and therefore supplication could not avail. The supposed demoniac named three Popish priests as likely to cure him--a circumstance which led the discomfited Presbyterians to say that the Devil had more mind to let the Popish priests have “the credit of casting him out, because his ends would be better served by Popery than by them.” The Episcopal Clergy in the neighbourhood stood aloof from this stupid credulity. That the boy had been given to tricks from his early days was shown by witnesses; and collusions with his sister in pretended intercourse with the spirit-world were also proved. Foolish and wretched creatures now began to trade upon what had been a genuine belief, and their conduct, whilst it showed that sincerity was parting company with superstition, helped to undermine faith in all such things. [Sidenote: SUPERSTITION.] In London, similar but still more disgusting exhibitions were made by people pretending to be possessed; and in one case a miserable woman, through an accusation for witchcraft, had her hair torn off her head, and after being kicked and trampled on, was thrown into a horse-pond. A new result followed: instead of the supposed witch being punished, the pretended victim was. All sorts of pretences were shown up, and pretenders suffered the punishment they deserved, whilst poor old crones, bent double with age, escaped the river, the gallows, and the stake. Between 1640 and 1680, many unhappy creatures were punished for witchcraft. Between 1680 and 1691, three were hanged at Exeter, the last instance of capital punishment inflicted in England for this offence; three were imprisoned in Somersetshire; and several in other counties were ducked in horse-ponds.