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Thereafter the children had fits, and during these 

 cried out the name of the prisoners ; they also 

 vomited crooked pins. They could not pronounce 

 the words "Lord/' " Jesus/' or "Christ" in reading, 

 but when they came to "Satan"" or "Devil," they 

 cried, "That bites, but makes me speak it right 

 well." One of the children was suckled by one of 

 the accused ; the child fell into a swoon, and out of its 

 blanket came a great toad, which exploded in the fire 

 like gunpowder ; immediately afterwards the accused 

 was seen sitting at home maimed and scorched. By 

 way of experiment the children were made to touch 

 the prisoners and others in court, and their behaviour 

 was such that many in the court openly declared 

 that they thought the children were impostors. The 

 medical expert witness (Sir Thomas Browne) said that 

 the fits were natural, "though heightened to great 

 excess by the sublety of the devil co-operating with 

 the witches." Here one would say the direct line of 

 thought was obvious : a village quarrel, arousing a 

 desire to injure the prisoners ; spiteful parents teach- 

 ing their children to act ; children liable to real fits 

 at some times, and able to simulate them at others ; 

 crooked pins introduced among that which the 

 children had vomited ; and, lastly, the toad incident 

 invented, or rehearsed, when one of the prisoners 

 was known to have injured herself. Yet the judge 

 and jury preferred another train of ideas, for 

 no apparent reason except that it involved the 



