Evening star., 1914-07-11

/, this also is sufficient matter of examina-
ton. though not of conviction.
". If, after enmity. quarreling or
threatening a present mischief does fol-
low. that also is a great presumption.
wi. If the party suspected be a son
or daughter, the man servant or maid
servant. the familiar friend, near neigh
, Dor or old companion of convicted
witch, this also is a presumption. for
| witchcraft is an art that may be con-
veyed from man to man.
| VII Some add this for a presump-
ton: If the party suspected has the
| DEVILS mark, for it is commonly thought
when the devil makes his covenant with
them, he always leaves his mark behind
for them. whereby he knows them as his
| own, a mark whereof no evident reason
in nature can be given
VIII. Lastly, if the party examined
| be unconstant or contrary to himself, in
| his answers. it argueth a guilty con-
| science which stops the freedom of Ut
| terance. And yet there are cases of as
tonishment that befall the good as we'll
| as the bad. The word of a wizard is not
| to be believed for if the devil do testify
under oath, who shall know that he
| speaks the truth?"
| The banalities contained in this cheer
| full little formula for the detection OF
witches are so obvious to need but
!
and it is instantly seen how the
! code would operate against an inno-
cent person in favor of one who had
| formed a conspiracy against him. A
| family might be suspected of witch
| craft because they had moved near a
| person who had been convicted. A
| witch" to save her own life might
swear that her neighbor was practicing
witchcraft. In both of these cases
there would be an investigation. and
| yet one witch could not testify against
another, nor could she be introduced
into court to prove. as an expert wit
| ness. that the alleged supernatural
symptoms portrayed by the prisoner
were not signs of witchcraft.
1t must have been the easiest thing
in the world to start an investigation
and the hardest thing in the world to
stop it short of trial where twelve
shell-backed superstitious New Eng
| landers forming the jury sat with
| trembling knees and with their fingers
curved in the sign of the horn.
Reading through these grim his
tories one can visualize d slight quar-
rel between Mrs. Deliverance Jones and
Mrs. Patience Smith concerning the
ownership of a hen. Mrs. Jones. hav-
Ing gotten the hen. furnishes Mrs.
Smith with an opportunity to claim
that she saw the hen butting it's head
against the stable door and otherwise
acting as if it We're bewitched. There
is the situation exactly covered by
article of Mr.. Perkins rules.
There. There had been a 9uarreling and
would next say that she had seen her
neighbor in company with another
woman who had been convicted of
Witchcraft. but had reformed. Then
the investigation would be begun.
Falsehoods must have fourished under
this code. for once CONVICTED the easiest
way of escaping the burning pyre was to
confess that everything which had been
said was true. That meant that any one
might invent case of Witchcraft against
the person who had first saved themselves
from being burned alive, and any one
who knows popular sentiment and its
fickleness can realize how small the
chances of the convicted witch would be
when she came to trial second time
DO these cases sound impossible? Let
us study few of the court records con-
tained in the elaborate dissertations on
W1tchcraft and Its vagaries. There was
a case of &c. B." who was tried and
burned to death for being a magician.
u. b. went walking one day and his
brother-in-law and wife rode beside him
on horseback. They searched all day for
Strawberries, but could not find them.
Late in the afternoon the three were re-
turning from the fruitless hunt when &c
b. stepped aside and disappeared be-
hind clump of bushes. Mr.. Ruck the
brother-in-law. and &c. B.'s.' wife rode
on ahead without him. and arriving at
IN me mouse found that he had reached
there ahead of them and had a basket of
Strawberries.
AS soon as they rode up to him he ac-
cused MS wife and Ruck of having gos-
siped pee, about about him while he was away.
Inc brother-ln-law replied:
you do not know what we have s.id