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William Morris we ought to say, "We do not want art for a few any more than education for a few or freedom for a few." If the national government would regard the importation of foreign works of art as educational material and levy upon them, where imported for private enjoyment, not a meaningless tax on money value, but a real claim, in behalf of the people, on their educational value - namely, the enforcement of public exhibition so many days in the year - the art atmosphere would cease to be so rarified, would soon lose its crudity. Works of art should be welcomed to our country as are intelligent emigrants, there should be no admission fee; but, like the peoples who crowd to our shores, they should be required to play their part in the development of our race. As it is, there is a duty of 25 per cent. on photographs and engravings, of 55 per cent. on plaster casts, and of 30 per cent. on works of foreign artists; and "thus the American 'artist' is protected from the advantage of acquaintance with the richest store houses of information regarding his art." But the horizon is brightening. We are told that by a recent treasury decision secured by Mr. Henry Marquand, pictures painted before 1700 are now admitted free as antiquities. Thus master-pieces of renaissance art, to obtain which all other nations will make almost any sacrifice, will not, at least when the rare opportunities to secure them come, be kept from landing here by our custom house.
   This concession is worth much, yet the general status is not so good as in 1878 when the tariff indiscriminately on paintings and statuary was only ten per cent. ad valorem.
   Things being thus, private collectors heavily taxed and permitted to immure from the knowledge of neighbor and follow citizen art creations whose influence should be felt throughout the community while in Italy every prince throws open the doors of his picture gallery once or twice a week - an added responsibility rests upon corporations, societies like your own, institutions like our state university, colleges, academies, schools, seminaries, municipal corporations. For, toward them,. the attitude of the government is as liberal as the most exacting could desire. Under articles classed free from duty in the tariff act of 1878, as also the revised tariff of '82 and '83 we read: "All works of art, collections in illustration of

the progress of the arts, sciences or manufactures, photographs, works in terra cotta, Parian, pottery or porcelain, and artistic copies of antiquities in metal or other material, hereafter imported in good faith, for permanent exhibition at a fixed place by any society or institution established for the encouragement of the arts, or science, and not intended for sale nor for any other purpose than is herein before expressed, * * shall be admitted free of duty." This provision has, as yet, produced little effect, for institutions have not applied their wealth in these directions, individuals have done so. When the reverse becomes true will begin the art education of the masses of our people. In 1824, more than sixty years ago, Edward Everett called attention to the fact that republics have done the most for art. "The cost of Giotto's tower was at the rate of $300 for each superficial foot, equal to five millions old currency or, estimating the relative value of money, twenty-five millions." It has been worth all that to Florence. Painting was the language of Venice and of the Netherlands. The Athenians applied to monumentalizing the city the revenues of the Delian Confederacy - some 9,000. talents, or ten million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, when, according to Leake, the equivalent of one thousand talents was capable of obtaining as much art and labor as two or three times that sum at the present time, since a family of four could subsist on one hundred dollars per annum. Our own republic is now struggling with a problem, unique at least in modern history. What shall be done with the enormous surplus in our treasury - a surplus which will amount June next to the sum of one hundred and forty millions (140,000,000). Shall the tariff be wholly abolished, or shall smoking be enforced? Would that the spirit of Athens or Florence could enter into the councils of our rulers. It might suddenly occur to them that we need national institutions such as lands, less favored in a pecuniary sense, glory in. Institutions in Washington like the British Museum and National Gallery, repeated on a smaller scale in each state capital; museums of casts, academies after the pattern of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, free to all whom nature has made the elect - institutions belonging to the people and where the people can enjoy the actual treasure which money only represents.
   Allow me to quote a fragment of conversation in point between Mathew Arnold and Cardinal Antonelli. They are speaking of

public schools. Antonelli says, "Illiterate as the Italian population. is said to be, yet if you mix with the people at any festival and listen to their criticism of what they see - e brutto, e bello - you will find their criticism to be almost invariably right. And a people of whom that call be said must surely be allowed to have a certain sort of education." "I (Arnold) thought of the stolid insensibility to ugliness the inability to discern between good and evil where the beautiful is concerned which so easily besets our Anglo-Saxon race, and I acquiesced in what the Cardinal said. And at the same moment there rose to my memory the admirable sentence of a. Moravian schoolmaster in the 17th century, John Comenius, to, train generally all who are born men to all which is human. Surely to be offended by ugliness, to be delighted and refreshed by beauty is eminently human; just as - on the other hand - it is a proof that our humanity is raw and undeveloped if we confound the two together or are indifferent to them. For we are then in bondage, as Goethe says, to the common and inferior, out of that bondage we are to rise, and to know that however general it may be around us, it is not less a bondage and an evil." Has the state of Nebraska any concern in the attitude of our general government towards these matters" Certainly, since our government is representative. Let the constituencies demand from their representatives intelligent action. The American race is not restricted to the Anglo-Saxon element. Many peoples jostle each other in our thoroughfares, The very nations to whom belong the great artistic traditions have colonized vast tracts of our land. The French, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Flemish, the German, the Italian.. Their blood already mingles with the Anglo-Saxon and gives it deeper color, gives it quicker action. And to its are coming from those older civilizations every year throngs of citizens. Is it too much to hope that out of the healthful friction produced by the mingling of many gifted peoples as citizens of a common country, a spark of diviner fire shall be kindled than has yet blazed upon the world? The world at least, forbodes it, expects it of us. Let us give ourselves the chance. If it be not in us to outstrip others, we still desire to have all intelligent knowledge of the subject and of ourselves. We want to know what is in us, and none too soon shall we now demand the means of doing this. The nation, as a nation, is certainly moving towards this

goal; the initiatory step was induced by the Centennial, and where there is any action at all, the progress is not slow. For, "Art is long"- - its nature cannot be changed, "all artist needs many seasons for maturing;" and one of the greatest difficulties to be overcome in this country is the impression that talent exempts from labor, instead of being the incentive to it, and a reason to hope it may be rewarded. Hamerton, in one of his popular books, has described the training necessary to become a competent art critic; but what conscientious, incessant labor a professional artist gladly subjects himself to, few appreciate. "Our amateurs," says Raskin, "cannot be persuaded but that they may produce some kind of art by their fancy or sensibility, without going through the necessary manual toil. That is entirely hopeless. Without a certain number, and that a very great number of steady acts of hand - a practice as careful and as constant as would be necessary to learn any other manual business - no drawing is possible. On the other side, the workman and those who employ him are continually trying to produce art by trick or habit of fingers, without using their fancy or sensibility. That is also hopeless. Without mingling of heart-passion with hand-power no art is possible. The highest art unites both in their intensest degrees; the action of the hand, at its finest with that of the heart at its fullest." What training schools do we not need before our youth may come to comprehend the exactions of art! Our youth have a respect for manufacture "the work of the hand," all admiration for applied art "the work of the hand and intelligence," but for fine art - "the work of hand, head and heart,", the whole powers of the whole man, they have very inadequate appreciation. Else, the lofty career of artist would beckon them, would become the passion of many a brilliant boy who foolishly fancies that other professions afford greater scope.
   See this as we may, it still remains true for all the world that wherever the gentle art guest is cherished, is made at home, the works of man shall put on distinct dignity and beauty, the life of mail shall be lifted from the clod; for he shall see himself surrounded by embodied thoughts.

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SALEM WITCHCRAFT.

BY J. S. KINGSLEY.

[Read before a meeting of the Society, January 15, 1890.]

   As we read the ordinary historical references to that insanity which two centuries ago swept over New England, we have but the slightest conception of the sad reality; but in turning over the records preserved in the old court house in Salem the whole tragedy is brought before us, with almost the vividness of yesterday.
   Salem withcraft (sic) has given rise to a considerable literature, but it is to-day out of print and can only be found in the larger libraries. It is my purpose this evening to give a brief outline of the delusion and to make sufficient draughts upon the records, to show you the outrageous character of the evidence which condemned twenty persons to death. It is an easy task to detail the events in their chronological order but the psychological aspects of the subject are more difficult. It is almost impossible to say how far the principal actors were innocent and deluded, and how far they were actually guilty of a conspiracy against their fellow men. That the pastor of Salem village, Samuel Parris, was guilty, seems almost beyond doubt.
   Salem witchcraft did not start in the Salem of to-day nor was it confined to the county of which it was the county seat, but Salem has to bear the whole notoriety. Pilgrims to that quaint old city visit the "witch house," "witch hill," and are shown the witch documents and the witch pins; but few of them ever visit the actual scene of the excitement or see the other localities made historical by it. The witchcraft delusion of 1692 had its start in Salem village, near Danvers Center, then a part of Salem, a small village of farmers whose center, like that of every New England village of that day, was the church.
   Thanks to the care with which New England preserves its town and parish records, we are able to place ourselves en rapport with

the Salem of 200 years ago, a condition necessary to fully understand our subject. By the softening effects of time the old Puritans have had their disagreeable features smoothed down and their good points brought into strong relief. It takes but a short time among the old records to change all this and to show these people as thoroughly human and as rather uncomfortable to live with. We find, indeed, that card playing, dancing and play acting were crimes, that every mail was taxed for the support of the church, but we also find gossips then as well as now, we find church members placed in the stocks for drunkenness, and above all we find a spirit of illiberality in matters of religion which would not be tolerated for a moment today. Differences of opinion were not allowed and yet half of the churches were rent with discord.
   So it was at Salem village. Ever since the church was founded it was the scene of bickering and quarrel. Three pastors in succession had been forced to resign and in 1692 the fourth, Samuel Parris, was at the crisis of his pastorate. To further complicate matters, both Salem and Ipswich had granted the same land to different colonists, and by a strange coincidence the lines drawn by the land troubles coincided with those caused by the quarrels in the church.
   Again we must recall the fact that 200 years ago a belief in witchcraft was universal, while demonology occupied an important position in the literature of the day. A few elements of the prevailing belief will make what follows clearer. Every one believed in a personal devil, a monster of wickedness who employed most of his time in inducing people to sign away their eternity for a little temporal power. He had his limitations. He could not take the shape of a human being, nor could he harm anyone except through the agency of those who had signed their names in his book with their blood and had thus become covenant witches. It is interesting to note that works on demonology were common and that Mr. Parris had at least one book on the subject.
   It is difficult to explain the. first appearance of the Salem craze. It may be that it was at first a more childish frolic to pass away the winter hours, but it soon became anything but that. All that is known is told us by Robert Calef, writing only six years after the trouble began: "It was in the latter end of February, 1691-2 when divers young persons belonging to Mr. Parris' family, and one or two

more of the neighborhood began to act in a strange and unusual manner, viz.: As by getting into holes, and creeping under chairs and stools, and to use sundry odd postures and antick gestures, uttering foolish, ridiculous speeches, which neither they themselves nor any others could make sense of. The physicians that were called could assign no reason for this; but it seems that one of them (Dr. Griggs) having recourse to the old shift, told them be was afraid they were bewitched."
   It can readily be imagined that the news of a sensation like this rapidly spread through the small rural community. From far and near the neighbors gathered to see the actions and to condole and pray with the parents. The prominence into which the children were thus brought inspired them to continue their pranks and to outdo their former efforts. They quickly dropped the puerile acts mentioned above and began others far more mysterious. March 11th Mr. Parris invited several. ministers to join with him in a day of prayer. During the ceremonies the children were, for the most part quiet, but continues Calef, "one, a girl of 11 or 12 years old, would sometimes seem to be in a convulsion fit, her limbs being twisted several ways, and very stiff, but presently her fit would be over."
   Those who began the excitement were Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. Parris, aged nine; Abigail Williams, his niece, aged 11; Ann Putnam aged 12; truly a precious lot to keep the whole colony in a turmoil for a year and cause the death of twenty innocent persons. Youth may be urged as a partial excuse for them, but what can be said for the others who later joined the accusing circle? Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Mary Walcot were 17; Elizabeth Booth was 18; Sarah. Churchill and Mary Warren, 20; While Mrs. Ann Putnam and Mrs. Joseph Pope were married women.
   The afflicted children were urged to tell who had bewitched them. For a time they were silent but in a few days they accused Tituba, a slave in the family of Mr. Parris. She was arrested and confessed herself a witch and admitted having tortured the children. Two others - Sarah Osborn and Sarah Good were next accused and quickly arrested. They were both old, unfortunate people whose manner of life was such that the charge against them was readily believed. Unlike Tituba, when brought up for examination in the village church, they denied that they were witches, Sarah Good,

says the old record, making her answers "in a very wicked, spiteful manner."
   Up to this point it would not be difficult to imagine that the accusing children were responsible for all, but from this time all evidence goes to show that some older person directed the whole affair. There was a method in their madness; the accusations took such direction and the accusers were so little contradictory in their statements that we are forced to believe that some cooler head planned it all and actually drilled the so called afflicted ones in what they were to do and say. The evidence is strong that the pastor, Samuel Parris, was the chief sinner, and upon this supposition the next person "cried out upon was well chosen." It seems as if the prime movers realized that every tendency toward scepticism must be repressed while if the community could be persuaded that the devil had his followers within the very walls of the church, the subsequent paying off of old scores would be an easy matter.
   Martha Corey was a devout woman, well along in years, but being possessed of sound common sense she did not hesitate to express her opinions of the actions at the parsonage. On the 19th of March she was arrested and four days later Rebecca Nourse, an aged lady of acknowledged worth, was also made a prisoner. The probable explanation of the charges against the latter lies in the fact that all of her relatives were on the wrong side in the church and land quarrels. In short, these two, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nourse, are types of all who in the year the delusion raged were charged with witchcraft. Out of the hundreds accused it can be shown in almost every instance that scepticism of the genuiness of the manifestations or opposition to the pastor in the parish quarrels existed.
   From this beginning the growth was rapid. In April nineteen were accused; in May thirty-five; but after this the records are imperfect and we have no means of knowing how many were arrested beyond the fact that they amounted to hundreds, and with one exception all upon examination were committed to prison.
   These preliminary examinations and the subsequent trials were most outrageous travesties upon justice and to-day one's blood fairly boils as he reads the old records of the most diabolical evidence ever admitted in a court of law. The examinations were held sometimes in the meeting house, sometimes in private dwellings, but all

were alike. Every available place was filled with an audience hostile to the prisoners. Judges and jury entered upon the trials firmly convinced of the guilt of the accused, and their every act was directed towards confusing and entrapping the prisoners. Any one in the audience was permitted to speak so long as his remarks chimed with the prevailing belief. No counsel was allowed the accused nor was anyone allowed to say a word in their behalf. There was a total absence of dignity and the room was in a perfect uproar. What contributed most to the pandemonium were the actions of the accusers, and no words can describe them. At one moment they were shrieking as if undergoing the torments of the damned, writhing upon the floor or falling in a dead faint; at the next they were seeing visions or accusing the prisoners of torturing them right before the very eyes of all present. A few extracts here and there from the evidence preserved will show its character.
   "Mary Walcot, who hurts you? - Goody Cloyse."
   "What did she do to you? - She hurt me."
   "Did she bring you the book? - Yes."
   "What was you to do with it? - To touch it and be well."
   "Then she fell in a fit."
   This fainting, apparently of a hysterical character, was very common in the trials and was intended to convey the impression that the afflicted ones were being tortured for giving their evidence. To restore them it was sufficient to cause the accused to touch them. This was done in the present instance and the examination continued:
   "Doth she come alone? - Sometimes alone and sometimes with Goody Nourse and Goody Corey and a great many I do not know."
   "(Then she fell in a fit again.)"
   "Abigail Williams, did you see a company at Mr. Parris' house eat and drink? - Yes, sir; that was in the sacrament."
   "How many were there? - About forty, and Goody Cloyse and Goody Good were their deacons."
   "What was it? - They said it was our blood and they had it twice that day."
   In explanation it may be said that accounts of witch sacraments appear several times in the evidence, and the witnesses describe baptisms, a devil's supper, sermons, and the like, fashioned after those of the orthodox church. Notice of these meetings was given by

blowing upon a horn which was heard by witches alone as far as Andover and Boston. To these meetings the witches came in the oft described manner.
   "We ride upon sticks and are there presently. - Do you go through the trees or over them? - We see nothing but are there presently."
   In the examination of Abigail Williams referred to a moment ago Mr. Parris was conducting the examination, and the questions asked and the answers received, lend plausibility to the view that the witnesses were really coached in what they were to say. This also appears in the trial of Mary Black, a colored girl. She was asked:
   "Why do you hurt them? I did not hurt them.
   "Do you prick sticks? No, I pin my neck cloth.
   "Will you take out the pin and pin it again?"
   She did so, and the afflicted ones cried out that they were pricked, one in the stomach, one in the leg, and one in the arm until the blood came. The extent to which the girls inflicted pain upon themselves can be seen from the statement of Lawson, an eye witness, that "one, in the time of examination of a suspected person, had a pin run through both her upper and her lower lip when she was called upon to speak." A bottle of pins said to have been presented in evidence is still preserved with the records of the trials.
   The few extracts already given are fair samples of the evidence presented in every case, but there are two trials which demand special mention. When Martha Carrier was arrested, four of her children were taken with her and these infants were forced to confess.
   "It was asked Sarah Carrier by the magistrates:
   "How long hast thou been a witch? Ever since I was six years old.
   "How old are you now? Near eight years old; Brother Richard says I shall be eight years old in November next.
   "Who made you a witch? My mother; she made me set my hand to a book.
   "How did you set your hand to it? I touched it with my fingers, and the book was red; the paper of it was white.
   "She said she had never seen the black man; the place where she did it was in Andrew Foster's pasture, and Elizabeth Johnson, jr., was there. Being asked who was there besides, she answered, her
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aunt Toothaker and her cousin. Being asked when it was, she said, when she was baptized.
   "What did they promise to give you? A black dog.
   "Did the dog ever come to you" No.
   "But you said you saw a cat once; what did that say to you? It said it would tear me in pieces, if I did not set my band to the book.
   "She said her mother baptized her, and the devil or black man was not there, as she saw; and her mother said when she baptized her, 'Thou art mine forever and ever, Amen.'
   "How did you afflict folks? I pinched them.
   "And she said she had no puppets, but she went to those she afflicted. Being asked whether she went in her body or in her spirit, she said in her spirit. She said her mother carried her thither to afflict.
   "How did your mother carry you when she was in prison? She came like a black cat.
   "How did you know it was your mother? The cat told me so, that she was my mother. She said she afflicted Phelps' child last Saturday, and Elizabeth Johnson joined with her to do it. She had a wooden spear about as long as her finger of Elizabeth Johnson, and she had it of the devil. She would not own she had ever been at the witch meeting at the village. This is the substance."
   Think of it! On such evidence by her own children Martha Carrier was convicted of witchcraft and banged.
   After a few weeks of the excitement, the girls began to speak of a minister among the witches. At first no name was given, but rather such hints as to thoroughly arouse the audience. One cried out, while in a trance: "Oh dreadful, dreadful! Here is a minister come! What! are ministers witches too? Wbence came you, and what is your name? For I will complain of you though you be a minister, if you be a wizard." A few days latter George Burroughs, a former pastor of Salem village was denounced. His trial which resulted in conviction and death was of the same general character as that of the others, only the charges against him were worse. He had been promised the position of chief conjurer in hell; he blew the horn calling the witch congregation together and when assembled he preached the sermons. He was even accused of causing the death by witchcraft of several who died during his pastorate. Burroughs

was very athletic and had been noted for his strength while in college and this too was turned against him, it being claimed that the feats enumerated could be accomplished but by Satanic aid.
   As every charge depended for support upon the accusing girls, their action needs a word of description beyond that already given. While it must have been terrible to see them, exhausted by their torments falling as if dead upon the floor, how much more appalling must it have been to have them announce that they saw the devil present in person whispering advice and consolation in the ears of the accused. These girls, like some of the clairvoyants of to-day pretended to be able to see the apparitions of both the living and the dead. Time and time again according to the records one or another of the girls would exclaim, "There is the blackman whispering in her ear;" while as often they would announce the apparition of the prisoner performing some perfectly senseless operation. At one time every one of the accusing circle, gazing with simulated horror at the timbers in the upper part of the meeting house, exclaimed "Look you! there is Goody Proctor upon the beam."
   "Afterwards some of the afflicted cried, 'There is Proctor going to take-up Mrs. Pope's feet!' and immediately her feet were taken up."
   "Abigail Williams cried out, 'There is Goodman Proctor going to Mrs. Pope!' and immediately said Pope fell into a fit."
   Every act, every motion of the accused was carefully watched and produced corresponding torments upon the girls. When Giles Corey was being examined, the old record says, "One of his hands was let go, and several were afflicted. He held his head upon one side and then the heads of several were held on one side. He drew in his cheeks and the cheeks of some of the afflicted were sucked in."
   The magistrates do not seem to have had a suspicion of fraud, but regarded all denials by the prisoners as aggravations of guilt. At the time just mentioned when Mrs. Pope fainted, one of the justices remarked, "You see, the devil will deceive you; the children could see what you was going to do before the woman was hurt." At another time the judge turned to the prisoner and the following conversation ensued:
   "There, she accuseth you to your face; she chargeth you that you

hurt her, twice. It is not true. I never wronged no man in word nor deed."
   "Is it no harm to afflict these? I never did it."
   "But how comes it to be your appearance? The devil can take any likeness.
   "Not without their consent."
   There must have been some wonderful acting upon the part of the girls to carry conviction to a whole community, but nowhere was it better shown than in the case of Mary Warren, whose name was mentioned as one of the accusers, but who suddenly appeared among the accused. The only explanation of this change involves a depravity almost too great for belief. The chief conspirators were afraid that they might be suspected of acting in concert, while if one of their own number were accused, this charge could not be brought. So Mary Warren was drilled for her new role. All at once she left the circle and said that her former associates "did but dissemble." She was immediately cried out upon and brought up for examination. She pleaded not guilty and the afflicted ones went through the same torments as in other cases. After detailing these the records continue:
   "Now Mary Warren fell into a fit, and some of the afflicted cried out that she was going to confess; but [observe the language] Goody Corey and Proctor and his wife came in, in their apparitions, and struck her down, and said she should tell nothing.
   "Mary Warren continued a good space in a fit, that she did neither see, nor speak, nor hear.
   "Afterwards she started up and said, 'I will speak,' and cried out 'Oh, I am sorry for it, I am sorry for it' and wringed her hands, and fell a little while into a fit again, and then came to speak, but immediately her teeth were set; and then she fell into a violent fit, and cried 'Oh, Lord, help me! Oh! good Lord, save me!'
   "And then afterwards cried again, 'I will tell, I will tell!' and then fell into a fit again." And thus it went on, struggle after struggle, fit after fit, from the 19th of April until the middle of May. At one time she cried out, "'I shall not speak a word; but I will, I will speak, Satan! She saith she will kill me. Oh! she saith she owes me a spite, and will claw me off. Avoid Satan, for the name of God avoid!' and then fell into fits again and cried 'Will ye? I will prevent ye, in the name of God.'"

Could anything be more realistic than such a representation of a struggle between Satan and a human soul? Although the audience could not see the opponent, the acting, the shrieks, the fainting fits, the very words were such as to carry conviction; and so when the confession at last came, implicating so many, who could help believing it.
   Many of the accused confessed themselves witches, but who can blame them? They saw that all who confessed were saved while denials of guilt led to the gallows. It was a question of life or a lie. There was a difference however between Mary Warren and the 55 others who confessed themselves witches. They were remanded to prison while she resumed her old place among the accusing circle.
   The foregoing account relates to the preliminary examinations, but the trials do not differ materially from them and do not need detailed description. A special court of Oyer and Terminer was created to try the cases of witchcraft and in its sessions between June 2 and September 19, 1692, it tried and convicted twenty-seven, nineteen of whom were hanged. In the trials Mr. Noyes, pastor at Salem, urged Sarah Good to confess, saying "she was a witch, and that she knew she was a witch." In her reply one reads the inspiration of one of Hawthorne's stories; - "You are a liar; I am no more a witch, than you are a wizard; and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink." One can but recall the terrible fatality of the long line of puncheons in connection with the end of the man thus cursed. Tradition says he died of internal hemorrhage, bleeding profusely at the mouth.
   At the time of the witchcraft delusion the charter of Massachusetts had been revoked; there were no province laws and the trials were held under the statutes of James I. When Giles Corey came up for trial he refused to plead. He knew that there was no hope for justice. To plead guilty was to lie; to enter a plea of not guilty was to be a party to his own murder. By the statutes a person who refused to plead could not be tried and consequently could not be convicted. He was further, the owner of a large farm which be wished to preserve for his relatives, but conviction of a capital crime was accompanied by confiscation of property. So he had strong reasons for remaining mute. The law had its way of dealing with such obstinacy, but it here met its match. Of the details of his

punishment for this contempt of court we know but little, except that gentle measures were tried first and then the English law was followed. He was laid on his back, a board placed on his chest, upon which were piled stones, each addition to the weight being a accompanied with importunities to plead. Says an old ballad:

   "'More weight' now said this wretched man,
'More weight' Giles Corey cryed,
And he did no confession make
But wickedly he dyed."

   And Giles Corey was pressed to death September 19, 1692, in the eighty-second year of his age.
   In all probability the executions took place on what is known as Witch or Gallows Hill. It is a high rocky bluff and was chosen, so the story goes, that Satan and his imps could have plenty of room to witness the destruction of their kingdom in the New World. The prisoners were carried to their execution in a cart drawn by a single horse. They were accompanied by a howling mob which attributed every incident to the devil. When the wagon was stuck upon the steep hill it was the devil who held the wheels; when one was choked by tobacco smoke in his last prayer, of course his Satanic Majesty caused the interruption.
   When the court adjourned, Sept. 19, it was with the expectation of meeting again at an early date and ridding the world of more of the "hellish brood." It never met. The executions of September 22 were the last. Sometime later another court was created which tried several and convicted three, but public opinion would not allow them to be hanged. What caused this sudden change is not certain. Probably there were several reasons. People saw there was no safety from the accusing circle. The least scepticism, the least luke-warmness resulted in accusations against the sceptic or against some of his family. Even the wife of the governor was cried out upon.
   It seems hardly probable, when the affair started, that the ringleaders had any idea of bow far it would go, They probably intended to punish a few of their enemies and then they would stop. But they could not stop. The commission of the first crime necessitated the second. There was no escape. If the people realized that the whole wretched affair was a conspiracy they would turn against its instigators, so the only hope was to keep up the delusion; and this could only

be done by offering new victims. Probably no one in all New England was better pleased than Parris when the frenzy ceased, though it was accompanied by a renewal of his old troubles, increased a hundred fold by the enmities he had stirred up.
   When the term began all were eager to assist, and one person in Boston aided very materially by instituting suits for slander against those who accused him of witchcraft. The excitement had spread far beyond Salem and witches were discovered as far away as Hartford, but it died out everywhere as soon as it stopped in Salem village.
   Exact statistics concerning the extent of the delusion do not exist.
   When the affair was over all tried to forget it. The records of the court are very imperfect and there is evidence that documents were inserted at a later date to justify the conspirators if brought to trial for the part they played. Later everything pertaining to the trial was neglected and large numbers of the documents were stolen by curiosity hunters.
   As has been mentioned 19 were hanged and one was pressed to death. None were burned as they would have been had the English law been strictly followed. Several more were convicted. 55 confessed themselves guilty. How many were accused no one knows. All the prisons in the province were full and besides many fled to the forest and to New York. The next year Gov. Phipps issued a proclamation releasing all from the charge of witchcraft, and over 150 came from prison while others were kept longer until they paid their jail dues.
   When all was over the lot of the accused was not a happy one. Before they were allowed their freedom all jail dues must be paid. Their board while in prison, yes the very shackles which bound them, were charged against them. And when these accounts were settled the home they reached was desolate; for in many cases the sheriff had seized everything.
   No adequate reparation could be made for the sufferings caused by these trials. Homes had been desolated, children had been robbed of parents and patrimony. Many others, including one child of five years, had been imprisoned as witches, while still others had their whole lives embittered by the thought that "confessions" extorted from them by a stupid magistrate and a scheming minister had aided in sending an innocent parent to a felon's grave. But

little was attempted. After a few years the church expunged its votes of excommunication and nearly twenty years after the affair the legislature granted nearly six hundred pounds to the families of some of the victims.
   While it seems as if the Rev. Mr. Parris, Deacon Thomas Putnam, and one or two others must have played the part of conspirators along with the accusing girls, it is certain that others were deluded,. going down to their graves fully persuaded of the truth of the charges. Still others, like Judge Sewall, made public confession of their error and humbly craved the pardon of both God and man. Still they must have been willing victims, for it was shown time and time again in the trials that the girls but played the part they pretended was so real. They were seen to bite their arms and then to show the marks as evidence of spectral teeth; to hold pins in the hand and claim that the blood which flowed was from wizard wounds. One of the girls was told that she lied when she accused a certain person. She admitted the charge and said, "you know we must have some fun." The clergy as a rule were more lukewarm in the prosecution than were the members of the legal profession. To be sure they were largely responsible for its start, but later only Parris, Noyes, and Cotton Mather were active while many were among the first to bring proceedings to a close.
   One can hardly help feeling that here, if ever, retributive justice followed those guilty of a crime. We have already mentioned the end of Mr. Noyes. The Rev. Deodat Lawson was an active agent in arousing the people. His death is shrouded in mystery, but in a book of 1727 he is referred to as "the unhappy Mr. Deodat Lawson." The sheriff and the marshal both died while still young men; Thomas Putnam and his wife lived only to the ages of 47 and 38; while "Ann Putnam jr." was for many years an invalid. In 1706 she made a confession which while it tacitly admitted the fraudulent nature of the whole proceeding threw the whole responsibility on the devil. Of the others of the accusing circle but little is known. In an act of the legislature of 1710 is this reference: "Some of the principal accusers, and witnesses in those dark and severe prosecutions have since discovered themselves to be persons of profligate and vicious conversation." One can imagine them descending to any crime in the attempt to forget that dark blot of 1692.

   There was no peace for Mr. Parris. As soon as there was the slightest calm in the witchcraft trials the old church quarrel was renewed with far more bitterness than before. His enemies fought at great odds for then church and state were united, but in 1697 he was driven out. He succeeded in getting other churches but always in the smallest and weakest parishes. The remembrance of the part he played followed him everywhere and in his last years he was reduced to absolute want.
   Cotton Mather must be mentioned here, for he played a very important though not a conspicuous part in the whole affair. He tells us that he was in Salem but once during the trials, but in one of his letters he explicitly says that he was one of the chief instigators and prosecutors of the delusion, though he endeavored to keep out of sight. A year later he tried to get up another witchcraft craze in Boston, and published a history and defense of the Salem troubles.
   Mather was a very ambitious man and in 1692 he was at the zenith of his life, standing an easy first among all the clergy of New England. From that time his life was filled with disappointments. His preeminence was gone. The offices he wanted so badly and worked for so assiduously eluded him, while his later years were embittered by rebuffs and open enmity from those around him. His diary of 1724 has been preserved. In it he pours out his inmost soul, and we can see in its pages how keenly be felt the many slights and indignities that had been heaped upon him. He tells us in the most pathetic language the many things he had tried to do for his fellowman, and with what ingratitude be had been rewarded. People "call their negroes by the name of COTTON MATHER, so that they may, with some shadow of truth, assert crimes as committed by one of that name, which the hearers take to be me. * * * Where is the man at whom the female sex have spit more of their vemon at? I have cause to question whether there are twice ten in the town but what have, at some time or other, spoken basely of me. * * * There is no man whom the country so loads with disrespect and calumnies and manifold expressions of aversion * * * Indeed I find some cordial friends, but how few. * * * My company is as little sought for, and there is as little resort to it, as any minister that I am acquainted with. * * * "
   This was January 1. His cup was not yet full. Above all things

he desired the presidency of Harvard College. In May of that year the president, his father, died, and Cotton's diary tells us he as much as begged for the position. In November the corporation elected another man. Even this was not enough; their first choice declined the honor, and six months later the trustees called the Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth to the position. As both of these gentlemen were pastors in Boston where Mather himself preached, he must have felt keenly the double slight thus heaped upon him. To-day Cotton Mather is but little more than a name, and people know no more of the author of over three hundred books than they do of that sad affair for which be was so largely responsible.