Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/802

told him "under secrecie" that she had not confessed because she was guilty, but being a poor wretch who wrought for her meat, and being defined for a witch, she knew she would starve, for no person thereafter would give her either meat or lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs at her, and therefore she desired to be out of the world, whereupon she wept most bitterly, and upon her knees called upon God to witness what she said.

The death these poor women chose to suffer rather than accept a chance of life with the name of witch clinging to them,^[1] was one of the most painful of which we can conceive,^[2] although in the diversity of torture inflicted upon "the witch," it is scarcely possible to say which was the least agonizing.

Not only was the persecution for witchcraft brought. to New England by the Puritans, but it has been considered and treated as a capital offense by the laws of both Pennsylvania and New York. Trials took place in both colonies not long before the Salem tragedy; the peaceful Quaker, William Penn, presiding upon the bench at the time of the trial of two Swedish women accused of witchcraft. The Grand Jury acting under instruction given in a charge delivered by him, found bills against them, and his skirts were only saved from the guilt of their blood by some technical irregularity in the indictment.

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order to be rid of the dregs of her wretched life. At intervals fresh examinations took place, and they were repeated from time to time until her "contumacy," as it was termed, was subdued. The clergy and Kirk Sessions appear to have been the unwearied instruments of "purging the land of witchcraft," and to them, in the first instance, all the complaints and informations were made.—Pitcairn, Vol. I., Part 2, p. 50.

1. The following is an account of the material used, and the expenses attending the execution of two witches in Scotland:

   For 10 loads of coals to burn the witches	£3	06	8
   a tar barrel	0	14	0
   towes	0	06	0
   hurdles to be jumps for them	0	03	10
   making of them	0	08	0
   one to go to Tinmouth for the lord to sit upon the assize as judge	0	06	0
   the executioner for his pains	0	08	14
   his expenses there	0	16	4

   —Lectures on Witchcraft in Salem, Charles W. Upham
2. See an account of the tortures and death of Alison Balfour, in which not only she, but her husband and her young children were also grievously tortured in order to wring confession from the wife and mother. This poor woman bore everything applied to herself, nor did the sufferings of her husband and son compel a confession of guilt. Not until her little daughter of seven or eight years was put to the torture in her presence did the constancy of the mother give way. To spare the innocent child, the equally innocent mother confessed she was a witch. After enduring all the agonies applied to herself, and all she was made to bear in the persons of her innocent family, she was still made to undergo the frightful suffering of death at the stake. She was one of those who died calling upon God for that mercy she could not find at the hands of Christian men.