Before concluding this chapter it will not be out of place to mention the fact that one of the most strenuous writers against witchcraft subsequently ornamented the Irish Episcopal Bench. This was Dr. Francis Hutchinson, who wrote the "Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft" in the form of a dialogue between a clergyman (the author), a Scotch advocate, and an English juror. The first edition was published in 1718, and was followed by a second in 1720, in which year he was promoted to the See of Down and Connor. As to the value of his book, and the important position it occupied in the literary history of witchcraft in England, we cannot do better than quote Dr. Notestein's laudatory criticism. He says: "Hutchinson's book must rank with Reginald Scot's _Discoverie_ as one of the great classics of English witch-literature. So nearly was his point of view that of our own day that it would be idle to rehearse his arguments. A man with warm sympathies for the oppressed, he had been led probably by the case of Jane Wenham, with whom he had talked, to make a personal investigation of all cases that came at all within the ken of those living. Whoever shall write the final story of English witchcraft will find himself still dependent upon this eighteenth-century historian. His work was the last chapter in the witch controversy. There was nothing more to say." CHAPTER IX A.D. 1807 TO PRESENT DAY MARY BUTTERS, THE CARNMONEY WITCH--BALLAD ON HER--THE HAND OF GLORY--A JOURNEY THROUGH THE AIR--A "WITCH" IN 1911--SOME MODERN ILLUSTRATIONS OF CATTLE- AND MILK-MAGIC--TRANSFERENCE OF DISEASE BY A _CAILLEACH_--BURYING THE SHEAF--J.P.'S COMMISSION--CONCLUSION Old beliefs die hard, especially when their speedy demise is a consummation devoutly to be wished; if the Island-Magee case was the last instance of judicial condemnation of witchcraft as an offence against the laws of the realm it was very far indeed from being the last occasion on which a witch and her doings formed the centre of attraction in an Irish law-court. Almost a century after the Island-Magee incident the town of Carrigfergus again became the scene of action, when the celebrated "Carnmoney witch," Mary Butters, was put forward for trial at the Spring Assizes in March 1808. It is an instance of black magic versus white (if we may dignify the affair with the title of _magic_!), though it should be borne in mind that in the persecution of witches many women were put to death on the latter charge, albeit they were really benefactors of the human race; the more so as their skill in simples and knowledge of the medicinal virtue of herbs must have added in no small degree to the resources of our present pharmacopoeia. The following account of this is taken from the _Belfast News-Letter_ for 21st August 1807, as well as from some notes by M'Skimin in Young's _Historical Notices of Old Belfast_.