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My Native Land - The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; - with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, - Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the - Instruction of the Young by James Cox
page 35 of 334 (10%)
her teeth. The chronicles of the court tell us, with much solemnity,
that when the woman's hands were tied her victims did not suffer, but
the moment the cords were removed they had fits.

Even her husband was called as a witness against her. His evidence does
not appear to have been very important or relevant. But another witness,
a Mrs. Pope, who appears to have been an expert in these matters, and to
have been called at nearly every trial, took off her shoe in court and
threw it at the prisoner's head, an act of indecorum which was condoned
on the ground of the evident sincerity of the culprit. The poor woman
was condemned, as a matter of course, and when she was removed to jail,
a deputation from the church of which she was a member called upon her
and excommunicated her. She mounted the ladder which led to the gallows
with much dignity, and died without any attempt to prolong her life by a
confession.

The fate of her husband was still more terrible. Notwithstanding his
zeal, and the fact that he had given evidence against his own wife, he
was arrested, charged with a similar offense. Whether hypnotic
influences were exerted, or whether the examining justices merely
imagined things against the prisoner, cannot be known at this time. The
court records, however, state that while the witnesses were on the
stand, they were so badly afflicted with fits and hurts, that the
prisoner's hands had to be tied before they could continue their
testimony. Unlike his wife, the poor man did not deny the existence of
witchcraft, and merely whined out, in reply to the magistrate's censure,
that he was a poor creature and could not help it. The evidence against
him was very slight, indeed, and he was remanded to jail, where he lay
unmolested, and apparently forgotten, for five or six months.

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