e large
majority of the witnesses and the greater number of the victims were
women. The men who conducted the trials and passed the verdict of
"guilty" cannot, of course, stand blameless; but it was the long pent-up
but now abnormally awakened imagination of the women that wrought havoc
through their testimony to incredible things and their descriptions of
unbelievable actions. No doubt many a personal grievance, petty
jealousy, ancient spite, and neighborhood quarrel entered into the
conflict; but the results were out of all proportion to such causes, and
remain to-day among the blackest and most sorrowful records on the pages
of American history.

As stated above, some of the testimony was incredible and would be
ridiculous if the outcome had not been so tragic. Let us read some bits
from the record of those solemn trials. Increase Mather in his
_Remarkable Providences_ related the following concerning the
persecution of William Morse and wife at Newberry, Massachusetts: "On
December 8, in the Morning, there were five great Stones and Bricks by
an invisible hand thrown in at the west end of the house while the Mans
Wife was making the Bed, the Bedstead was lifted up from the floor, and
the Bedstaff flung out of the Window, and a Cat was hurled at her....
The man's Wife going to the Cellar ... the door shut down upon her, and
the Table came and lay upon the door, and the man was forced to remove
it e're his Wife could be released from where she was."[26a]

Again, see the remarkable vision beheld by Goodman Hortado and his wife
in 1683: "The said Mary and her Husband going in a Cannoo over the River
they saw like the head of a man new-shorn, and the tail of a white Cat
about two or three foot distance from each other, swimming over before
the Cannoo, but no body appeared to joyn head and tail together."[26b]

Cotton Mather in his _Wonders of the Invisible World_ gives us some
insight into the mental and physical condition of many of the witnesses
called upon to testify to the works of Satan. Some of them undoubtedly
were far more in need of an expert on nervous diseases than of the
ministrations of either jurist or clergyman. "It cost the Court a
wonderful deal of Trouble, to hear the Testimonies of the Sufferers; for
when they were going to give in their Depositions, they would for a long
time be taken with fitts, that made them uncapable of saying anything.
The Chief Judge asked the prisoner who he thought hindered