Sometimes, you wonder if the old ways are the best, when solicitors had the respect and admiration of their clients, prison was a place you were punished and not the punishment itself, and witches were dunked to test their innocence. Well, maybe not the last one, but witches are very much on the mind at the moment as the Law Society library is this month displaying some material from its special collections on the subject of witchcraft and in particular the trial of the Lowestoft witches, which took place 1664. Parliament passed Acts in 1541, 1562 and 1603, all of which prohibited the practice of witchcraft. The Witchcraft Act 1603 made the charge of witchcraft punishable by death and this Act was used in the trial of the Lowestoft witches. The 1603 Act was not repealed until the Witchcraft Act 1735, which abolished the crime of witchcraft and replaced it with a crime of 'pretended witchcraft'. Those found guilty were given a maximum penalty of one year's imprisonment. They could also be placed in a pillory, which normally involved being locked in a form of stocks and being pelted with rotten vegetables for an afternoon. In these days of finding alternatives to prison, this is another idea from the past that could still have some use today.