[12] Boot or Bootikin, an instrument of judicial torture formerly used as a means of extorting confessions or evidence. It was originally brought from Russia, and consisted of a narrow wooden box made by nailing four planks together, and the leg of the prisoner being placed in it, wedges were inserted between the calf of the leg and the sides of the box, and struck home with a mallet. Sometimes a case of iron was used in a similar way, and occasionally the wedges were placed against the shin bone. The torture, which was of the most horrible character, was sometimes administered until the limbs were wholly crushed and rendered for ever useless. In the judicial records of Scotland there are many instances given of the application of the boot, and some of the details are of the most revolting character. It was last used in 1690, when an English gentleman named Neville Payne was, by the express command of William III., submitted to the torture of the thumb-screw and boot, and which in his case were applied with fearful severity. It is believed that all judicial torture had been given up in England about fifty years previous to this, and it was finally abolished by 7 Anne, c. 20. [13] "There have been many found in whom such characters have concurred, as by the observation of all ages and nations, are symptoms of a witch; particularly the witch's marks, _mala fama_, inability to shed tears, etc., all of them providential discoveries of so dark a crime, and which, like avenues, lead us to the secret of it. 'Tis true, one man, through the concurrence of corrosive humours, may have an insensible mark, another may be enviously defamed, and a third, through sudden grief or melancholy, not be able to weep. One or other of these may concurr in the innocent, but none do attest that all of them have concurred in any one person but a witch; and 'tis reasonable to think that these indicia taking place in witches through all places in the world, do proceed from a common cause, rather than a peculiar humour. 'Tis but rational to think that the devil, aping God, should imprint a sacrament of his covenant; and it is thought by many, of greatest repute in the learned world, that whatsoever way, whether by accident or otherwise, such insensible marks be in the body, yet no such mark as theirs, every circumstance considered, is to be found with any other but themselves. I need not insist much in describing this mark, which is sometimes like a little teate, sometimes but a blewish spot; and I myself have seen it in the body of a confessing witch, like a little powder-mark, of a blea colour, somewhat hard, and withall insensible, so as it did not bleed when I pricked it."--_A Discourse of Witchcraft, by Mr. John Bell, Minister of the Gospel at Gladsmuir_, 1705, _MS._ [Quoted by T. D. Morison in his Edition of Sharpe's Witchcraft.]