forward. Some poor old woman was thereupon picked out and subjected to
atrocious torture. If she "confessed," the torture ceased. Naturally she
very often "confessed," thus implicating others and damning herself.
Negative suggestion this modern psychologist likewise offers as light
upon witchcraft. The witches seldom cried, no matter what their anguish
of mind might be. The inquisitors used to say to them then, "If you're
not a witch, cry, let us see your tears. There, there! you can't cry!
That proves you're a witch!"

Moreover, that was an age when everybody read the Bible, and believed in
its verbal inspiration. And there in Exodus (22:18), is the plain
command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Cotton Mather, the
distinguished young divine, had published a work affirming his belief in
witchcraft, and detailing his study of some bewitched children in
Charlestown, one of whom he had taken into his own family, the better to
observe the case. The king believed in it, and Queen Anne, to whose name
we usually prefix the adjective "good," wrote to Governor Phips a letter
which shows that she admitted witchcraft as a thing unquestioned.

It is in connection with the witchcraft delusion in Salem that we get
the one instance in New England of the old English penalty for
contumacy, that of a victim's being pressed to death. Giles Corey, who
believed in witchcraft and was instrumental in the conviction of his
wife, so suffered, partly to atone for his early cowardice and partly to
save his property for his children. This latter thing he could not have
done if he had been convicted of witchcraft, so after pleading "not
guilty," he remained mute, refusing to add the necessary technical words
that he would be tried "by God and his country."

The arrest of Mrs. Corey, we learn, followed closely on the heels of
that of Tituba and her companions. The accused was a woman of sixty, and
the third wife of Corey. She seems to have been a person of unusual
strength of character, and from the first denounced the witchcraft
excitement, trying to persuade her husband, who believed all the
monstrous stories then current, not to attend the hearings or in any way
countenance the proceedings. Perhaps it was this well-known attitude of
hers that directed suspicion to her.

At her trial the usual performance was enacted. The "afflicted girls"
fell on the floor, uttered piercing shrieks, and cried out upon their
victim. "There is a man whi