One benefit there was in witchcraft, though it was not recognised officially as such at the time. It created a new industry--a whole crop of industries. It is of the nature of belief that it encourages belief--not always of exactly the same kind--but of some form which intelligence can turn into profit. We cannot find any good in the new industry--grapes do not grow on thorns nor figs on thistles. The sum of human happiness was in no sense augmented; but at least a good deal of money or money’s worth changed hands; which, after all, is as much as most of the great financiers can point to as the result of long and strenuous success. In the organisation of this form of crime there were many classes, of varying risks and of benefits in inverse ratio to them. For the ordinary rule of finance holds even here: large interest means bad security. First there were the adventurers themselves who took the great risks of life and its collaterals--esteem, happiness, &c. The money obtained by this class was usually secured by fraudulent sales of worthless goods or by the simple old financial device of blackmail. Then there were those who were in reality merely parasites on the pleasing calling--those timorous souls who let “‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ like the poor cat i’ the adage.” These were altogether in a poorer way of trade than their bolder brothers and sisters. They lacked courage, and sometimes even sufficient malice for the proper doing of their work; with the result that success seldom attended them at all, and never heartily. But at any rate they could not complain of inadequate punishment; whenever religious zeal flamed up they were generally prominent victims. They can in reality only be regarded as specimens of parasitic growth. Then there came the class known in French criminal circles as _agents provocateurs_, whose business was not only to further ostensible crime but to work up the opposition against it. Either branch of their art would probably be inadequate; but by linking their services they managed to eke out a livelihood. Lastly there was the lowest grade of all, the Witch-finder--a loathly calling, comparable only to the class or guild of “paraskistae” or “rippers” in the ritual of the Mummy industry of ancient Egypt. Of these classes we may I think consider some choice specimens--so far as we may fittingly investigate the _personnel_ of a by-gone industry. Of the main body, that of Wizards and Witches or those pretending to the cult, let us take Doctor Dee and Madame Voisin, and Sir Edward Kelley and Mother Damnable--thus representing the method of the procession of the unclean animals from the Ark. Of the class of Witchfinders one example will probably be as much as we can stand, and we will naturally take the one who obtained fame in his calling--namely Matthew Hopkins, who stands forth like Satan, “by merit raised to that bad eminence.” B. DOCTOR DEE