The New York herald., 1922-10-08

and former pastor of the Salem VIII
lage church, was condemned to death.
She said that three persons recently
dead had appeared to her and accused
Mr.. BURROUGHS of numbering them.
She sent a man and a woman to the
gallows by testifying that in trance
she had seen them strangling and
biting young girl.
Two women died in jail: one of
them, who was 106 years old, had as
an accuser her own daughter. One
OF the most highly respected women
of the community was executed; her
husband, 80 years old, refusing to
plead, was placed under great
weight and fed by morsel of bread
and drops of water until death ended
his suffering. Five were hanged on
August Is. A month later eight per-
sons, of whom four were women,
died on the gallows. This was the
last scene in the tragedy. There were
further trials but no executions, and
early in 1898 all witchcraft prisoners
were released from Jail.
There have been years OF contro-
versy over this strange craze. One
theory was that it originated with
the quarrelsome pastor and woman
of the community as a means of
avenging themselves on their enc
mics in the intensely bitter Quarrels
of the parish. The ground for this
apparently was that against many
of those who suffered the pastor and
his woman aid had grudges. But
this seems too diabolic a scheme to
consider. Besides, there appears no
doubt that both these persons firmly
believed in witches.
Again, it has been a question if
the afflicted children" were the vic
tins of hallucination, perhaps hyp-
motto influence, or were just plain
liars. And also we're they in collu-
sion with the pastor and his aids?
ANN PUTNAM fourteen years after
ward humbled herself before the Sa-
lem Village church, declaring that
she was instrumental in bringing
upon the land the guilt of innocent
blood" and that she desired to lie in
the dust for it.
But in this controversy it is always
to be remembered that the belief
in witches and their power over
humanity was very general and that
people had been tried on the charge
of witchcraft in Europe, especially in
England, long before the Salem craze
and were still being brought to trial
for several years after 1t ended. The
| first witchcraft victim in America
was a Charlestown woman, hanged
in 1648. A woman was a year or so
afterward hanged for witchcraft in
Dorchester and another in Cambridge.
In 1856 Mrs. ANN HIBBENs, whose
husband was at one time the colony's
agent in England. was hanged as
witch on Boston Common.
The trials were in accordance with
| the procedure of the English courts
in the colonies. The men who formed
the special commission to try the
cases we're some of the ablest judges
of the day. Among these was SAM
uEL SEwAIL, man of broad and lib
eral education. In 1897 he stood up
in South Church. Boston, while bill
was read in which he took the
"blame and shame of the guilt and
asked pardon Of the people.
The Salem craze was the last witch
epidemic in civilized nations, the Eek
piring paroxysm OF the witchcraft
delusion." Public opinion condemned
the prosecutions. No jury could be
found which would bring in ver-
dict of guilt on the charge of witch
craft. The laws which made these
prosecutions possible became dead
letters-killed, as obnoxious laws are
when tested, by their own strict en-
forcement.