Other
ministers were called in, and prayer-meetings lasting all day were held,
with the result of throwing the patients into convulsions. [Footnote:
Calef's _More Wonders_, p. 90 _et seq._] Then the name of the witch was
asked, and the girls were importuned to make her known. They refused at
first, but soon the pressure became too strong, and the accusations began.
Among the earliest to be arrested and examined was Goodwife Cory. Mr.
Noyes, teacher of Salem, began with prayer, and when she was brought in
the sufferers "did vehemently accuse her of afflicting them, by biting,
pinching, strangling, &c., and they said, they did in their fits see her
likeness coming to them, and bringing a book for them to sign." [Footnote:
_Idem_, p. 92] By April the number of informers and of the suspected had
greatly increased and the prisons began to fill. Mr. Parris behaved like a
madman; not only did he preach inflammatory sermons, but he conducted the
examinations, and his questions were such that the evidence was in truth
nothing but what he put in the mouths of the witnesses; yet he seems to
have been guilty of the testimony it was his sacred duty to truly record
[Footnote: _Grounds of Complaint against Parris_, Section 6; _More
Wonders_, p. 96 (_i.e._ 56).]. And in all this he appears to have had the
approval and the aid of Mr.
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