people for the
offence, and is now engaged in doing road-work on the streets of the New
Jerusalem as a punishment for these acts done while on the woolsack.

Blackstone himself, one of the dullest authors ever read by the writer
of these lines, yet a skilled jurist, with a marvellous memory regarding
Justinian, said that, to deny witchcraft was to deny revelation.

"Be you a witch?" asked one of the judges of Massachusetts, according to
the records now on file in the State-House at Boston.

"No, your honor," was the reply.

"Officer," said the court, taking a pinch of snuff, "take her out on
the tennis-grounds and pull out her toe-nails with a pair of hot
pincers, and then see what she says."

It was quite common to examine lady witches in the regular court and
then adjourn to the tennis-court. A great many were ducked by order of
the court and hanged up by the thumbs, in obedience to the customs of
these people who came to America because they were persecuted.

[Illustration: IRISHMAN WHO, WHEN POOR, WAS DOWN ON RICH PEOPLE.]

Human nature is the same even to this day. The writer grew up with an
Irishman who believed that when a man got wealthy enough to keep a
carriage and coachman he ought to be assassinated and all his goods
given to the poor. He now hires a coachman himself, having succeeded in
New York city as a policeman; but the man who comes to assassinate him
will find it almost impossible to obtain an audience with him.

[Illustration: IRISHMAN WHO, WHEN RICH, WAS PROUD AND HAUGHTY.]

If you wish to educate a man to be a successful oppressor, with a genius
for introducing new horrors and novelties in pain, oppress him early in
life and don't give him any reason for doing so. The idea that "God is
love" was not popular in those days. The early settlers were so stern
even with their own children that if the Indian had not given the
forefather something to attract his attention, the boy crop would have
been very light.

Even now the philosopher is led to ask, regarding the boasted freedom of
America, why some measures are not taken to put large fly-screens over
it.

CHAPTER VI.

THE EPISODE OF THE CHARTER OAK.

The Colonies of Maine and New Hampshire were so closely associated with
that of Massachusetts that their history up to 1820 was practically the
same.

Shortly after the landing of the Pilgrims, say two years or thereabouts,
Gorges and Mason obtained from England the grant of a lar