The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-06-01
WITCHCRAFT TERRORs.
Witch Proper Has NO <inship with
the Enchantress.
From the Humanitarian.

From the Humanitarian.
The primitive mind STEPPED in supersti-
ton, feeds greedily on witchcraft, and
with this thought for a basis Mrs. Step
ney Rawson has built an interesting art-
Gle, from which the following are ex-
tracts:
The witch proper has neither knship
with the Sybn or enchantress of sacred
or classic lore, or the Vala of Morse Saga,
There were persons of high standing, and
generally summoned by sage, hero or mon
arch. The link between such and the or
binary witch of legend is the common con-
juror or warlock. There were these in
plenty, men who began as chemists and
dropped into alchemy and all sorts Of
mysticism, who started as astronomers
and lapsed into mere astrologers. The
baser callings, then, as now, were those
that pay. Something there doubtless was
at the bottom of their success, a trick of
personality, a trace of the thing loosely
defined as animal magnetism" A GER
tain number of wizards suffered for their
Willful or UNCONSCIOUS Vaccinations, but
the wizard was never so popular as the
witch. He was too clever, and assuredly
not fluid enough for the DEVILS purposes.
the fifteenth century. She is the outcome
of the northern imagina ton; she lurked
in cleftS with the trolls and rode on the
storm. She is treated at length in the lit
eratuTe of the time in which she flour
ished (sic): Some are rich and worldly
wise" wrote James 1, of witches, evidently
thinking of the fourteenth century Dame
Alice Kyteler, and the proud Duchess of
Gloucester, or of Mistress Euphemia Ma
calzean, daughter of LORD Cliftonhall, the
last of whom he brought to justice.
Some" continues the royal scribe, "are
fat and corpulent, and most part are
given over to the pleasures of the flesh,
and further experience daily proves how
10th they are to confess without torture
which witnesseth their outlines. 1t is
this mixture of saffron and greedy age
and this reveling of the body, that forms
so appalling a vision, born of the puerile
suggestions of monks and the hysteria of
epileptc girls The witch, 1t was clearly
understood, had a lover, a familiar of brut-
ish shape, she was served by her imps
vampires, in essence, and these imps in
cited her daily to fresh and wholly pur-
poseless malevoence. II was not hard to
establish such belief for the most loath-
some and grotesque details of the entire
creed were furnished by the supposed
witches themselves when half insane after
torture.
The famous Massachusetts, prosecutions
young girls from y to 49, some of them
servants, all alike belonging to the work
ing classes, used to amuse themselves with
palmistry and thrilling legends The cur
rent belief in supernatural beings was so
vivid that 1t took very little to make one
SILVER on dark night. The children with
their heads full of fantasies and fears
gradually worked themselves up into q
species of frenzy. We are told that they
would creep into holes, make antic ges-
lures and utter loud outcries and incoher-
ent expressions" The parents became
alarmed, the village surgeon, Master
Griggs, was summoned and diagnosed The
excitability as possession" Then there
was a prayer and fasting among the par
ents and any divine that happened to be
available was Invited to come and asslsr
in quelling the spiritual disturbance The
girls grew quite experts at their work
When they were conjured TO name those
who had cast the spells they uttered at
random the names of three innocent neigh
bors. Then there was a panic In Salem
The children were brought into court face
to face with the accused. Whenever a sen
sation seemed to be required the afflicted
children" gave it by counterfeiting delir-
ium or Inconsistencies. The most har-
rowing of all these cases is that of Martha
Carrier a Godiyloying woman, whose
young children were forced to witness
against her. Their wild statements
prompted by the prosecutors brought her
to her DEATH After a while the witch ma
MIA died out, certain eminent New Eng
land divines having reluctantly discovered
and as reluctantly confessed, in so MANY
words. that there had been a little mis-
take somewhere, and that they had been
misinformed as TO the devirs intentions.
The witch owed her importance as an
institution to the clergy. II is not sur
prising. The INSTRUMENTATION Of thar
single sentence in Exodus, Numbered Ore