er men, as his associates. By
the second of June, the court was in session at Salem, making its
experiment on Bridget Bishop, a poor and friendless old woman. The fact
of witchcraft was assumed as "notorious." To fix it on the prisoner,
Samuel Parris, who had examined her before her commitment, was the
principal witness to her power of inflicting torture. He had seen it
exercised. Then came the testimony of the bewitched, and a terrible mess
of stuff it was. One, on reading it, might suppose that all the inmates
of Bedlam had been summoned into court to give their personal experience
in the land of insanity.

Many of the witnesses testified that the "shape" of the prisoner often
grievously tormented them, by pinching, choking, or biting them, and did
otherwise seriously afflict them, urging them all the while to write
their names in a book, which "the spectre" called: "Our book."

Sarah Williams, who was devotedly attached to Mr. Parris and his cause,
swore that it was the shape of this prisoner, with Cora Waters, which
one day took her from her wheel and, carrying her to the river side,
threatened to drown her, if she did not sign the book mentioned, which
she yet refused to do.

Others said that the witch "in her shape," that is, appearing to them in
a spiritual body invisible to any save the parties before whom she would
appear, boasted that she had ridden John Bly, having first changed him
into a horse. One testified to seeing ghosts of dead people, who
declared that Bridget Bishop had murdered them.

While the examination of the accused was in progress, the bewitched
seemed extremely tortured. If she turned her eyes on them, they were
struck down. While they lay in swoons or convulsions, the poor old woman
was made to touch them, and they immediately sprang to their feet.
Samuel Parris had his minions well trained. On any special action of her
body, shaking of her head, or the turning of her eyes, they imitated her
posture and seemed under some strange spell.

Evidence was given that one of the bewitched persons persuaded a man to
strike at the spot where the "shape of this Bishop stood," and the
bewitched cried out:

"You have tore her coat," and it was found that the woman's dress was
torn in the very place.

Deliverance Hobbs, who had confessed to being a witch, now testified
that she was tormented by the spectres for her confession. And she now
testified that this Bishop tempted her to sign the book aga