tended not only to confirm them in their impositions, but to draw others into the same frauds. The number of the bewitched soon increased, and the contagion spread from children to grown people. These, too, had their spasms and convulsions, and laid their charges, not only against Tituba, but two other women, named Osborn and Good, one of whom was crazy, and the other bed-ridden. Tituba at length confessed herself a witch, and the other women her confederates. The three were put in jail. Three weeks afterwards, two other women, of good character and church-members, named Corey and Nurse, were charged with witchcraft. On their approach the children fell into fits, but the women denied everything, and were imprisoned. The charge then fell upon a child of five years old, the daughter of the above-mentioned Sarah Good, who had haunted and bitten the bewitched persons; in evidence of which the print of small teeth were exhibited on their arms. The infatuation increased, and those whose duty it was to check it, used their utmost exertions to spread the alarm more widely. Parris preached an inflammatory sermon from the text, "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" At this, Sarah Cloyse, sister to one of the accused, rose and left the meeting, which of course caused her to be charged with witchcraft, and imprisoned. About the same time, Elizabeth Procter incurred the same charge; and her husband having the hardihood to accompany his wife to the examination, fell under a similar accusation, which ultimately cost him his life.

The public attention was now absorbed in the subject. The deputy governor, with five other magistrates, went to Salem in April. Sarah Cloyse and Elizabeth Procter underwent an examination. Parris, who officiated on the occasion, appears to have excited all the charges. The first witness, John, the Indian, husband to Tituba, was rebuked as a grievous liar. Sarah Cloyse was accused of having been at the witches' sacrament. Struck with horror and amazement at this absurd charge, she fainted away. The possessed impostors cried out, "Her spirit is gone to prison, to her sister Nurse!" The niece of Parris charged Elizabeth Proctor with attempting to persuade her to sign the devil's book; to which she calmly replied, "Dear child, it is not so, there is another judgment, dear child." This availed nothing in her favor, and the accusers, turning towards her husband, declared that he, too, was a wizard. All three were thrown into prison. No wonder that the whole country was in a consternation, when persons of sober life and unblemished character were committed to prison upon evidence like this. Nobody

was safe; and the most effectual way to avoid an accusation was to become an accuser. Accordingly the number of the bewitched increased every day, and the number of the accused in proportion.

Hitherto no one of the accused, except Tituba, had confessed: and hints were thrown out that by confession they might save themselves. This had its effect, and a woman named Hobbs, owned everything charged against her, and was left unharmed. Thus it was that the monstrous doctrine began to be promulgated that the gallows was to be set up, not for those who professed themselves witches, but for those who rebuked the delusion,-not for the guilty, but for the unbelieving. But in all cases of epidemic madness, nothing is more offensive to the popular taste than moderation and scepticism. As might be expected, confessions rose in importance, as being the only avenue of escape. Examinations and commitments followed daily, and the land was shaken with such terror and alarm as cannot be easily described. The purest life, the strictest integrity, the most solemn assertions of innocence, were of no avail. Husband was torn from wife, parent from children, brother from sister, and in some cases the unhappy victims saw in their accusers their nearest and dearest friends. In one instance a wife and daughter accused the husband and father, to save themselves; and in another, a girl, seven years old, testified against her mother.

Two individuals appear to have been mainly instrumental in strengthening and upholding these lamentable delusions,-Parris, above mentioned, and Cotton Mather; the latter, a compound of ignorance and learning, of bigotry, spiritual pride and inquisitorial malice. Parris was present at all the examinations of the accused, taking the matter into his own hands, putting leading questions, and artfully entrapping the witnesses into contradictions, by which they became confused, and were charged as guilty of the imputed offence. In some cases confessions were extorted by the most cruel methods. Two young men persisted in maintaining their innocence, till they were tied together neck and heels, and then they accused their own mother. Margaret Jacobs being artfully beguiled into a confession, accused Mr. Burroughs, minister of Salem, and afterwards her own grandfather. Burroughs was condemned to be hanged, on which she was struck with horror and remorse, and recanted her confession, choosing rather to lose her life than to persist in accusing an innocent person. She begged forgiveness of Burroughs before his execution, and retracted all she had said against her grandfather; but this did not save his life.

The prisoners had been increasing from the middle of February until June. The jails of Essex and the neighboring counties were full. In May, the new charter and the royal governor, Sir William Phipps, arrived at Boston. The governor, a firm believer in witchcraft, finding the prisons filled with victims charged with this offence, and urged on by the seeming emergency of the occasion, issued his special commission, constituting the persons named in it, a court for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex. This court, which was an illegal tribunal, because the governor had no shadow of authority to establish it, consisted of seven judges, namely: William Stoughton, the lieutenant-governor, chief justice Nathaniel Saltonstal, who refused to act, and was replaced by Jonathan Curwin, John Richards, Bartholomew Gedney, Wait Winthrop, Samuel Sewall and Peter Sergeant. The date of their commission was June 2d, 1692, and on the same day the court convened at Salem. It was a popular tribunal; there was not a lawyer concerned in its proceedings. Stoughton and Sewall had been educated clergymen; Withrop and Gedney, as physicians; Richards was a merchant; Sergeant was a man of influence in the colony. The general course of proceedings at these trials was quite consistent with the character of the court and the nature of the offence. After pleading to the indictment, if the prisoner denied his guilt, the afflicted persons were first brought into court to swear as to who afflicted them. Then those of the accused who voluntarily confessed, were called upon to tell what they knew of the accused. Proclamation was then made for all who could give any testimony, however foreign to the charge, to come into court, and whatever any one volunteered to tell, was admitted as evidence. The next process was to search for "witch marks," the doctrine being that the devil affixed his mark to those in alliance with him, and that this spot on the body became callous and dead. This duty was performed by a jury of men or women, according to the sex of the prisoner. A wart or mole was often conclusive evidence, when the other proof was doubtful. It was a strong sign of witchcraft to make an error in the Lord's prayer, which the accused, on their examination, were required to repeat, and if they committed a single slip of the tongue, even in the pronouncing of a syllable, it was fatal to them.

As a specimen of the absurdities that were uttered as testimony against the accused, we will cite the following from the trial of Bridget Bishop. One witness testified that in the course of some little controversy with the prisoner about her fowls, he went to bed well one night, awoke by moonlight, and saw the clear likeness of this woman grievously oppressing him, in which misera

ble condition she held him, unable to help himself, till near day. He told her of this, but she utterly denied it, and threatened him very much. Quickly after this, being at home on a Lord's day, with the doors shut about him, he saw a black pig approach him, and on endeavoring to kick it, the spectre vanished away. Immediately after, sitting down, he saw a black thing jump in at the window and come and stand before him. The body was like that of a monkey, the feet like a cock's, but the face much like a man's. He being so extremely affrighted that he could not speak, this monster spoke to him and said, "I am a messenger sent unto you, for I understand that you are in some trouble of mind, and if you will be ruled by me you shall want for nothing in this world." Whereupon, he endeavored to clap his hands upon it, but he could feel no substance, and it jumped out of the window again, but immediately came in by the porch, though the doors were shut, and said, "You had better take my counsel." He then struck at it with a stick, but hit only the groundsel. The arm with which he struck was presently disabled, and the spectre vanished away. He presently went out at the back door, and spied this Bridget Bishop in her orchard, going towards her house, "but he had not power to set one foot forward unto her." Upon this, returning into the house, he was immediately accosted by the monster he had seen before, which goblin was going to fly at him; whereat he cried out, "The whole armor of God be between me and you!" So it sprung back and flew over the apple-tree, shaking many apples off in its passage. In making the leap it flung dirt with its feet against the stomach of the man, whereupon he was struck dumb, and so continued for three days together!

Two other witnesses testified that being employed by the prisoner to help take down the cellar wall of the old house wherein she formerly lived, they did, in holes of the said old wall, find several poppets, made up of rags and hog's bristles, with headless pins in them, the points being outward, "whereof the prisoner could now give no account unto the court that was reasonable or tolerable."

On evidence of this sort, she was convicted of witchcraft, and sentenced to be hanged, which sentence was carried into execution on the 10th of June. "As she was under guard," says Cotton Mather, "passing by the great and spacious meeting-house of Salem, she gave a look towards the house; and immediately a demon, invisibly entering the meeting-house, tore down a part of it; so that though there was no person to be seen there, yet the people, at the noise, running in, found a board, which was strongly

fastened with several nails, transported into another quarter of the house."

There was one species of evidence which was of great effect in these prosecutions, and which it was impossible to avoid or rebut. Witnesses were allowed to testify to certain acts of the accused when they were not present in the body, tormenting their victims by apparitions and spectres, which pinched them, robbed them of their goods, caused them to languish and pine away, and pricked them with sharp pins; the bewitched persons often producing the identical pins with which this was done. It was thought that an invisible and impalpable fluid darted from the eyes of the witch and penetrated the brain of the person bewitched. A touch by the witch attracted back the malignant fluid, and the sufferers recovered their senses.*

After the condemnation of Bridget Bishop, the court adjourned to the 30th of June, and the governor and council thought proper, in the meantime, to take the opinion of several ministers on the state of affairs. This opinion, drawn up by Cotton Mather, contained many cautions against precipitancy, but concluded with a strong recommendation of "speedy and vigorous prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious." This recommendation unfortunately received vastly more attention than the cautions which preceded it. The prosecutions were carried on with all possible vigor. At the next session of the court, five women were brought to trial, condemned and executed. There was some difficulty in the case of Rebecca Nurse, one of the number; she was a member of the church, and bore a good character. The jury pronounced her not guilty. The accusers made a great clamor, and the court expressed much dissatisfaction. They said the jury must have disregarded the words the prisoner used when two female witnesses appeared against her, namely, "they used to come among us,"-which the court interpreted to refer to a witch meeting. The jury again retired, "but could not tell how to take her words against her" till she had explained them. The prisoner, being informed of the use which had been made of her words, gave in her declaration to the court that she meant only that the witnesses were prisoners as well as herself, and that, being hard of hearing and full of grief, she found it difficult to explain herself. After her condemnation, the governor showed a disposition to grant her a reprieve, but this was met by a violent opposition. An organized committee in Salem, whose

It has been suggested that many of the alleged marvels attending these cases, resemble the appearances said to be displayed at the exhibitions of mesmerism.