160 THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 



all the deliberate villain he had been led to believe him. 

 The more he read of him the more he was struck with the 

 familiarity of his type. The controlling spirit of this 

 grotesque tragedy, its atmosphere, had something which 

 he had known in his own experience. It was a horribly 

 tragic fraud then and is a strangely grotesque one to-day. 

 He cited the case of JNIary Warren in her fits as one of 

 undoubted hypnotism. These girls had apparently carried 

 hypnotism to excess, and partook of just such consequent 

 moral debasement as we see to-day, about the purlieus 

 where occultism in its lowest forms is practised. The bulk 

 of the evidence was spectral. It was this absurd evidence 

 which hung the witches ; it was its rejection which stopped 

 the witchcraft trials. 



The case of Rebekah Nurse was another instance of ex- 

 cessive hypnotism. Rebekah Nurse bent her neck and 

 immediately all of the afflicted had their necks similarly 

 twisted. This was nothing against Goody Nurse, but when 

 Abigail Williams cried out to set the neck of the accused 

 straight or Elizabeth Hubbard's neck would break off, it 

 simply showed that Betty Hubbard's vision was so greatly 

 diseased by hypnotism that she was involuntarily under 

 its subjection. From this, the speaker asked, with their 

 awful view of Calvinism, was it not probable that these 

 people ascribed this condition to God or Satan ? 



Rev. Charles B. Rice of Dan vers was introduced as the 

 successorof Samuel Parris. Mr. Rice made a witty speech. 

 He said he had come down more especially to see that the 

 sin of Salem in this witchcraft business was not all shoved 

 off upon Danvers. The fact was that the delusion was 

 short and sharp in Danvers, and then the people were 

 prompt to confess their error. In Salem the confession 

 was rather slow and canting. 



He had said the afflicted girls were possessed of a h^'p- 



