Note 1835 — Chapter IX · ENGLAND AND THE NORTHERN RACES.

Cobbett’s State Trials, VI. 686.—Although ostensibly not used to extort confession, this pricking was practically regarded as a torture. Thus in 1677 the Privy Council of Scotland “found that they (i. e., the inferior magistracy) might not use any torture by pricking or by withholding them from sleep” (loc. cit.).