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Some Observations on the State of Society, Past and Present, in Relation to Criminal Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

David Nicolson
David Nicolson*
Affiliation:
State Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Broadmoor
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Extract

6. In 1630 Alexander Hamilton confessed to having met the devil in the likeness of a black man riding on a black horse. He renounced his baptism, and engaged to become the devil's servant, on receipt of four shillings sterling. The devil instructed him how to be revenged of his enemies, and further gave him a spell by which he hilled the Lady Ormestone and her daughter in revenge of the lady's having refused him the loan of a mare, and having called him nicknames. Lastly, he declared he had many meetings with the devil, from whom he once got a severe drubbing for not keeping an appointment.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 28 , Issue 121 , April 1882 , pp. 6 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1882 

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References

Some Observations on the State of Society. Google Scholar
Some Observations on the State of Society.Google Scholar
* Malefice, in the Scotch law, signifies an act or effect of witchcraft.Google Scholar
* As the bitter “crust” in port wine, and the blood-curdling “ghost” in family tradition, so the devil-dealing heresy in Christendom appears to have been taken as evidence of the high class article, for we are told in the commentary to the Marquis Beccaria's work on crime that the Turks were reproached with having amongst them neither sorcerers, witches, nor demoniacs, and the want of the latter was considered as an infallible proof of the falsity of their religion.Google Scholar
* “History of Civilization in England” (ed. 1873, vol. i., p. 29).Google Scholar
* “Essay on Crimes,” p. 64.Google Scholar
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