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THE IROiSrCL^D AGE, (THE evolutxdssymoiWitchcraft.—The Bloody Trail of the Christian Religion Across the World.—Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witoh to Live I[Continued from laat week.]The following brief history of witchcraft is taken from the “Memoirs of Popular Delusions,” by Charles Mackay, L. L. D., London. It is written by a Christian and the church is shielded as much aspossible. But the sinceresfc opponent of the curse and fraud called the Christian religion needn't wish it a deeper damnation than that to which this infernal and bloody record (softened as it is) will condemn it:Those who in their morning and evening prayers acknowledged the one true god, and praised him for the blessings of the seed-time and the harvest, were convinced that frail humanity could enter into a compact with the spirits of hell to Bubvert his laws and thwart all his merciful intentions. Successive popes, from Innocent VIII. downwards, promulgated this degrading doctrine, which spread so rapidly, that society seemed to be divided into two great factions, the bewitching and the bewitched.The commissioners named by Innocent VIII. to prosecute the witch-trials in Germany were, Jacob Sprenger, so notorious for his work on demonology, entitled the Malleus Malleficamm, or Hammer io knock down Witches; Henry Institor, a learned jurisconsult; and the biBhop of Strasburgh. Bamberg, Treves, Cologne, Paderborn, and Wurzburg, were the chief seats of the commissioners, who, during their liveB alone, condemned to the stake, on a very moderate calculation, upwards of three thousand victims. The number of witches so incrensed, that new commissioners were continually appointed in Germany, France and Switzerland. In Spain and Portugal the inquisition alone took cognizance of the crime. It is impossible to search the records of those dark, but now happily non-existing tribunals; but the mind recoils with affright even to form a guess of the multitudes who perished.The mode of trial in the other countries is more easily ascertained. Sprenger in Germany, and Bo-dinus and Delrio in France, have left but too ample a record of the atrocities committed in the much abused names of justice and religion. Bodinus, of great repute and authority in the seventeenth century, says, “The trial of this offence must not be conducted like other crimes. Whoever adhereB to the ordinary course of justice perverts the spirit of the law, both divine and human. He who is accused of sorcery should never be acquitted, unless the malice of the prosecutor be clearer than the sun; for it is so difficult to bring full proof of this secret crime that out of a million of witches not one would be convicted if the usual course were followed!” Henri Bo-guet, a witch-finder, who styled himself “The Grand Judge of Witches for the Territory of St. Claude,” drew up a code for the guidance of all persons engaged in the witch-trials, consisting of seventy articles, quite as cruel as the code of BodinuB. In this document he affirms that a mere suspicion of witchcraft justifies the immediate arrest aud torture of the suBpeeted person. If the prisoner muttered, looked on the ground, and did not shed any tears, all these were proofs positive of guilt! In all cases of witchcraft, the evidence of the child ought to be taken against its parent; and persons of notoriously bad character, although not to be believed upon their oaths on the ordinary occasions of disputes that might arise between man and man, were to be believed, if they swore that any person had bewitched them! Who, when he hears that this diabolical doctrine was the universally received opinion of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, can wonder that thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons Bhould be brought to the stake? that Cologne should for many years burn its three hundred witches annually? the district of Bamberg its four hundred? Nuremberg, Geneva, Paris, Toulouse, LyonB, and other cities, their two hundred?A few of these trials may be cited, taking them in the order of priority, bb they appeared in different parts of the continent. In 1595, an old woman residing in a village near Constance, angry at not being invited to share the sports of the country people on a day of public rejoicing, was heard to mutter something to herself, and was afterwards seen to proceed through the fields towards a hill, where she was lost sight of. A violent thunder-storm arose about two hours afterwards, which wet the dancers to the skin, and did considerable damage to the plantations. This woman, suspected before of witchcraft, was seized and imprisoned, and accused of having raised the storm, by filling a hole with wine, and stirring it about with a stick. She was tortured till she confessed, and was burned alive the next evening.About the same time two sorcerers in Toulouse were accused of having dragged a crucifix about the streets at midnight, stopping at times to spit upon and kick it, and uttering at intervals an exorcism to raise the devil. The next day a hail-storm did considerable damage to the crops ;and'a girl, the daughter of a shoe-maker in the town, remembered to have heard in the night the execrations of the wizards. Her Btory led to their arrest. The usual means to produce confession were resorted to. The wizards owned that they could raise tempests whenever they pleased, and named several persons who possessed similar powers. They were hanged aud then burned in the market-place, and seven of the persons they had mentioned shared the same fate.Hoppo and Stadlin, two noted wizards of Germany, were executed in 1599. They implicated twenty or thirty witches, who went about causing women to miscarry, bringing down the lightning of heaven, and making maidens bring forth toads. To this latter fact several girls were found to swear most positively! Stadlin confessed that he had killed seven infants in the womb of one woman.Bodinus highly praises the exertions of a witch-finder named Nidar, in France, who prosecuted so many that he could not calculate them. Some of these witches could, • by a single word, cause people to fall down dead; others made women go with child three years instead of nine mouths; while others, by certain invocations and ceremonies, could turn the faces of their enemies upside down, or twist them round to their backs. Although no witness was ever procured who saw persons iu this horrible state, the witches confessed that they had the power and exercised it. Nothing more was wanting to insure the stake.At Amsterdam a crazy girl confessed that she could cause sterility in cattle, and bewitch pigs and poultry, by merely repeating the magic words Turius und Shnrius Iniurius! She was hanged and burned. Another woman in the same city, named Kornelis van Purmerund, was arrested in consequence of some disclosures the former had made. A witness came forward and swore that she one day looked through the window of her hut, and saw Kornelis sitting before a fire muttering something to the devil. She was sure it was to the devil, because she heard him answer her. Shortly afterwards twelve black cats ascended out of the floor, and danced on their hind legs around the witch for the apace of about half an hour. They then vanished with a horrid noise, and leaving a disagreeable smell behind them. She also was hanged and burned.At Bamberg, in Bavaria, the executions from the year 1610 to 1640 were at the rate of about a hundred annually. One woman, suspected of witchcraft, was seized because, having immoderately praised the beauty of a child, it had shortly afterwards fallen ill and died. She confessed upon the rack that the devil had given her the power to work evil upon those she hated, by speaking words in their praise. If she said with unwonted fervour, “What a strong man!” “What a lovely woman!” “What a sweet child!” the devil understood her, and afflicted them with diseases immediately. It is quite unnecessary to state the end of this poor creature. Many women were executed for causing strange substances to lodge in the bodies of those who offended them. Bits of wood, nails, hair, egg-shells, bits of glass, shreds of linen and woollen cloth, pebbles, and even hot cinders and knives, were the articles generally chosen. These were believed to remain in the body till the witches confessed or were executed, when they were voided from the bowels, or by the mouth, nostrils, or ears. Modern physicians have often had cases of a similar description under their care, where girls have swallowed needles, which have been voided on the arms, legs, and other parts of the body. But the science of that day could not account for these phenomena otherwise than by the power of the devil; and every needle swallowed by a servant-maid cost an old woman her life. Nay, if no more than one suffered in consequence, the district might think itself fortunate. The commissioners seldom stopped Bhort at one victim. The revelations of the rack in most cases implicated half a score.Of all the records of the witch-trials preserved for the wonder of succeeding ages, that of Wurzburg, from 1627 to 1529, is the most frightful. Hau-ber, who has preserved this list in his Ada at Scrip-la Magica, says, in a note at the end, that it is far from complete, and that there were a great many other burnings too numerous to specify. This record, which relates to the city only, and not to the province of Wurzburg, contains the names of one hundred and fifty-seven persons who were burned in two years in twenty-nine burnings, averaging from five to six at a time. The list comprises three play-actors, four inukeepers, three common councilmen of Wurzburg, fourteen vicars of the cathedral, the burgomaster’s lady, an apothecary’s wife and daughter, two chorister’s of the cathedral, Gobelin Bablin, the prettiest girl in the town, and the wife, the two little sons, and the daughter of the councillor Stolzenberg. Rich and poor, young and old, suffered alike. At the seventh of these recorded burnings, the victims are described sb a wandering boy, twelve years of age, and four strange men and women found sleeping in the market-place. Thirty-two of the whole number appear to have been vagrants of both sexes, who, failing to give a satisfactory account of themselves, were accused and found guilty of witchcraft. The number of children on the list is horible to think upon. The thirteenth and fourteenth burnings comprised four persons, who are stated to have been a little maiden nine years of age, a maiden still less, her sister, their mother, and their aunt, pretty young woman of twenty-four. At the eighteenth burning, the victims were two boys of twelve, and a girl of fifteen; at the nineteenth, the young heir of the noble house of Ro-tenhahn, aged nine, and two other boys, one aged ten, and the other twelve. Among other entries appear the names of Baunach, the fattest, and Steinacher, the richest burgher in Wurzburg. What tended to keep up the delusion in this unhappy city, and, indeed, all over Europe, was the number of hypochondriac and diseased persons who came voluntarily forward and made confession of witchcraft. Several of the victims in the foregoing list had only themselves to blame for their fate. Many, again, including the apothecary’s wife and daughter already mentioned, pretended to sorcery, and sold poisons, or attempted, by means of charms and incantations, to raise the devil. But throughout ail this fearful period the delusion of the criminals was as great as that of the judges. Depraved persons, who in ordinary times would have been thieves or murderers, added the desire of sorcery to their depravity, sometimes with the hope of acquiring power over their fellowB, and sometimes with the hope of securing impunity in this world by the protection of satan.****The small district of Lindheim, was, if possible, even more notorious than Wurzburg for the number of its witch-burnings. In the year 1633 a famous witch, named Pomp Anna, who could cause her foes to fall sick by merely looking at them, was discovered and burned, along with three of her companions. Every year in this parish, consisting at most of a thousand persons, the average number of executions was five. Between the years 1660 and 1664, the number consumed was thirty. If the executions all over Germany had been in this frightful proportion, hardly a family could have escaped losing one of its members.[To be continued next week.]Solo Leather Must Go.“Dermatine” is the new substance of soles of boots and Bhoes. It is impervious to wet aud has a stronger resistance to wear than leather. It stitches wear well, and hence is superior to Iudia rubber, aud givos a better grip iu walking on wet surfaces.An Unhappy Lifo.New York Sun. .“Oh, Mr, Lighthead,” remarked Miss Oldgirl, with a simper, “I've seen just eighteen happy summers to-day.” “Only eighteen happy ones,” replied he, with pity in his tone. “What an unhappy life you must have had.”piic*1iuP;HihiEnrarreans',i8ptOfw:bltbAilIt
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Indianapolis Monroes Iron Clad Age
Indianapolis, Indiana, US
Sat, Aug 13, 1887
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