of the persons who composed the little community as it then existed—their habits, and modes of life and thought.
In all that is purely historical we claim to be strictly authentic: such portions being either copies from the court records, or carefully compiled from the most reliable historians. Our own feet have trodden the precincts of "Salem Village," of "Gallow's Hill," and "Prison Lane;" in our own hands we have held the veritable "witch-pins;" our own eyes have searched the records, and read one of the original death-warrants still in preservation—and therefore we claim to know something of that of which we have written.
It is a matter of regret to us that in a tale so peculiarly New England in its character we could not venture to introduce "the live Yankee."
The quaint phraseology is easily hit off, and the strange mixture of shrewd intelli-
