El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-10-28

I church of Christ from the witches, and
( appointed inQutsltOrs in every country
l armed with power TO convict and pun
/ ish. Now indeed, matchmaking was
I undertaken in deadly earnest A class
! of professional witch finders sprang
I into being, who made 1t their sole bust
| ness to discover and burn witches. one
{ or these inQu1s1tOrs, COmanuS, IN italy,
burned Il poor women in one province.
Another in Germany. named Sprenger,
burned more than 500 in a year
Trials Of the accused were always &C
I cOmpan1ed by torture, by which means
| they were compelled to confess what
ever the inquisitOrs wanted. Naturally,
under the circumstances, they owned up
to anything. Some women even &C
knOwledged that they had had children
by the devil Acquittals hardly num-
bered ] percent of those tried Accu-
sation (Which anybody might WantOnly
bring against anybody else) was prac-
ticaly equivalent to condemnation and
sentence. Even the friends and rela-
tives looked on and seemed to approve
To pity a witch was dangerous In the
town of Piedmont in France, so many
were burned that there was not fam
lily that did not lose one or more mem
bers.
All Were Witch Hunters.
Luther and Calvin were as firm be-
levers in witChcraft as pope Innocent
himself The Protestants. when they
took hold Of the business. were as eager
witch hunters as the Catholics. A sta
tute Of Elizabeth, made in 1852, gave
the first formal recognition to witch
craft in England as a crime, and few
years later, the mania reached It's ell
max all over Europe During 80 years
the average number Of executions or
witches in Scotland was 200. In the
first so years OF the seventeenth cen
fury 10000 were burned or otherwise
destroyed in England.
The accused were. invariably subject
ed to the most frightful tOTtures to
make them confess. And this was no
mere affair Of a few years. There was
no abatement Of TT during all the reign
OF James VI (hlmselr a great prosecutor
OF witches, and who wrote a book about
them) or amid the civil wars that fol-
lowed, or through the long parliament
and usurpatiOn Of Cromwell, and the
reign Of Charles II
In those days many persons made
trade Of WitCh-finding. One Of these.
named Matthew HOskin, about the mid
die Of the fifteenth century, travelled
about in England, and in one year
brought go unfOrtunates to the stake
He charged each town that he visited
20 shtllings for hunting out any witches
IL might contain, and received in addi-
ton 20 shilllngs head for executions.
The test he used was that of Swim
ming. The accused was tied up in q
sack and thrown into the water. If she
sank and was drowned, the fact proved
her innocence If she flOated. she was
guilty, and therefore was burned.
Eventually. It is pleasant to tell Hos
kins himself was accused Of Witchcraft
and subjected to his own test Whether
he was drowned or burned, however, is
not recorded.
The mania was IN full blast in Eu-
rope when the Puritaus landed in New
England. ana that it should have brOk-
en- out on this side of the water is not
surprising It's first victim was Mar
garet Jones of CharlestOWn, near BOs-
ton. She was a woman of much intelli-
gence. and, having some sensible ideas
about medicine, disapprOved Of whole
sale bleeding and violent emetiCs. and
used TO work cures by means of herb I
tOnics and other simple prescriptions. I
This offended the doctors, and in 1913 [
she was tried for witch convicted. !
and hanged Gov. Winthrop, who ap- Z
proved the sentence, wrote that the 1
very hour Of the execution a tremend- I
lus WindstOrm came up-a fact which. I
n his opinion, proved the case against /
he accused
Soon afterWard a woman was l
hanged as a witch in Dorchester. Mass,