THE WITCHES OF SALEM.

A Relic of Religious Bigotry--Parson Lawson's Tirade Against
Witchcraft--Extraordinary Court Records of Old Puritan Days--Alleged
Supernatural Conjuring--A Man and his Wife both put to Death--Crushed
for Refusing to Plead--A Romance of the Old Days of Witch Persecution.

Among the curiosities of New England shown to tourists and visitors, is
the original site of some of the extraordinary trials and executions for
witchcraft in the town of Salem, now known as Danvers, Mass. Looking
back upon the events of two hundred years ago, the prosecution of the
alleged witches appears to us to have been persecution of the most
infamous type. The only justification for the stern Puritans is the fact
that they inherited their ideas of witchcraft and its evils from their
forefathers, and from the country whence most of them came.

One of the earliest precepts of religious bigotry was, "Thou shalt not
allow a witch to live," and from time immemorial witchcraft appears to
have been a capital offense. It is on record that thousands of people
have, from time to time, been legally murdered for alleged intercourse
and leaguing with the Evil One. The superstition seems to have gained
force rather than lost it by the spread of early Christianity. As a
rule, the victims of the craze were women, and the percentage of aged
and infirm women was always very large. One of the greatest jurists of
England, during the Seventeenth Century, condemned two young girls to
the gallows for no other offense than the alleged crime of having
exerted a baneful influence over certain victims, and having, what would
be called in certain districts, "hoodooed" them.