The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-14

| same dreadful tragedy, said, "I must not say anything not true--I must not | wrong anybody'-"I have sins enough already to answer for, and hope that
 I shall not add to my condemnation"
 and then, being just about to be swung
 into eternity, she begged her persecu- l tors to cease, saying ln words the last uttered, Never, never poor creature
 was tempted as I am tempted. Pray,
 pray for mel" I say had rather that | the blood of such q woman ran in my veins than that of the merciess de-
 mons who convicted he'd.
 1 Goody Bassett may not have been an | angeb neither was she devil. Goody | Knapp may not have been a minister | ing spirit, neither was she a vampire,
 but devils and vampires in spirit did
 exist in the colonies, sometimes clothed in the bands of the pulpit sometimes in the robes of the bench,
 and oftentimes in the garb of the labor ing people. These at this distance from
 the scenes of their unholy work seem to us answerable at the bar of God fort the blood of their fellow creatures. The site of the execution of Goody Bassett is still pointed out in the old
 village of Stratford It was known as "Gallows Brook" or "Gallows swamp"
 and is but little distance from the
 railroad station. Tradition ayers that a brook once crossed the old Mill
 road' there, and that rude stone
 bridge afforded passage over. Near
 this bridge says Orcutt in his history of
 Stratford, the gallows was set It
 stood probably on Common" land and
 away from any habitation. We must
 picture it as a rough and unsightly in
 strument of death, with none of the
 present appliances to render the vic
 tin's end quick and certain, but stand7
 ing in cart drawn from under or from
 a ladder suddenly withdraws, the cul-
 prit died from strangulation, All the
 people hocked to such narrowing
 scenes, and made the occasion "a Ro- man holiday"
 Thus suddenly Goody Bassett came upon the dramatic stage, and as sud denly disappeared from it. More sinned against than shining she ap- pears to the present age, Her hour of vindication may yet come when some public memorial shall be raised to the memory of the martyrs of New Eng lands fanaticism.
 Moralist and philosopher have theo- rized by the ream to account for this discolored page of history. There was a reason for it, but no reason In 1t. It came to these shores an inheritance of unknown ages of savagery and barba- rism in the old world. Pilgrim and Puritan brought its seeds. It needed but the soil and air of new world to freshly develop the old undying issue between evil and good. Ignorance was its corner stone and superstition its support.
 Ear marks of the supernatural are still to be seen (ontside the Bassett | family) Many present whims, preju- | dices, imaginations. practices are echoes of the days of the old unreason- ing fear of the unseen. The infuriated | farmer of the eighteenth century who | fired a charge of buckshot into the | family churn to kill, the devil because the butter would not come, and Hezeki- al Miller, of North Haven, in the nine teenth century, who imprisoned land tortoises within the rails of his fences to die of starvation because the pecu- liar colored lines of thelr shell were marks of the devil, were survivals of such as hung witches and persecuted Baptistss
 Happily we are fallen on better times. The silent forces of education and ev- olution have wrought for us better deals of human life Our children are not tormented as of yore. Our cattle are not bewitched nor our poultry con- sumed in ye gizzard." Witch marks Ire not found except it be such baro- netrical observations as the hobo may make upon our front gates concerning he larder within. Our cats may be black and our Bibles be torn without being in complicity with the evil one. Saint and sinner lie down together and 'ise in the morning and pursue their ourney. Religious prosecutions no onger exist, Fears are scattered to he winds. The dreaded witch of 1900 lyiug the upper air by night riding a broom, has melowed down into the weet witch of 1901 riding bicycle, and