f
witchcraft; the men were rarely more than judges and executioners. Thus
the subject falls well within our scope of discussion and narration.

The first New World victim of such an accusation was Margaret Jones,
who, in 1648, was condemned at Charlestown, where she lived, and was
duly hanged. The ground of accusation seems to have been that Goody
Jones, as she was called after the fashion of the day, was a medical
practitioner who did not believe in venesection or in the use of violent
emetics, but worked her cures by means of herbs and simples, and thus
aroused the jealousy and distrust of the regular physicians. The case is
instructive as showing the very slight grounds that were sufficient to
bring about a charge of witchcraft; and it is also instructive, as
demonstrating the childlike credulity of some of the strongest men of
the time, that Governor Winthrop, who presided at the trial of Goody
Jones, records as a proof of the woman's guilt that at the hour of her
execution there came "a very great tempest in Connecticut which blew
down many trees." There were at least two other victims within the next
two years; but in 1656 we find a case that is really startling, as
showing the ranks into which the prevalent superstition could penetrate
as a fatality. In that year was hanged on Boston Common Mistress Ann
Hibbins, whose husband had been a member of the Council of Assistants
and an esquire, and whose brother, Richard Bellingham, was
deputy-governor of Massachusetts. We know very little of the merits of
this case, which is unfortunate, as the facts would undoubtedly be
interesting, looking to the high social standing of the victim. Mistress
Hibbins was tried before Endicott, and we may be sure that that stern
old Puritan paid no attention to the social position of the accused. We
know that the Rev. John Norton, who had breathed fire and flame against
the Quakers and was no friend to any who disturbed the peace of the
colony, held that Mistress Hibbins was wrongfully done to death and
declared that she was condemned "only for having more wit than her
neighbors;" and he tells us that the circumstance which held most weight
against her was her remark, on seeing two people inimical to her talking
together, that she was sure that they were talking about her. It would
not seem that magic was needed to suggest such a conclusion; but the
judges thought that no one but a witch could have divined such an
abstruse fact, and Mrs