“Or had been beaten till they’d know
What wood the cudgel’s of by the blow,”
if needful, and John and his Tituba been returned to their native soil, no doubt the horrible tragedy would have been averted. The Shafflin girl in Peabody was cured “when a timely whipping brought her to her senses.” So was Dinah Sylvester, of Mansfield, when given her choice of a whipping or owning and abandoning her error.
Casting out Devils
“Still the Wonder Grew”
But, instead, Mr. Parris, in fashion of the vaunted prowess of Cotton Mather and other pedantic, astute, aspiring ministers, to show their efficiency in “casting out devils,” called in the clergy, the deacons, and the elders, and held, February 11th, a day of fasting and prayer. “And still the wonder grew.”
A Portentous Leap Day
“The Greatest Show on Earth”
It was high time, and some leading citizens took the initiative. A complaint was lodged against Tituba Feb. 25, 1692. The first warrants were issued the 29th, the leap day of the year, and Sarah Good, Sarah Osbun, and Tituba Indian were apprehended. They were examined March 1st and ordered to jail in Boston, to await the action of the higher court.
The examinations were to be held in Ingersoll’s Tavern, but the crowd was so great on Ingersoll’s Common, that the court adjourned to the meeting house. The magistrates were John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, assistants. They went over from Salem, attended by the marshal, constables, and their aids, and all of them arrayed in the garb of court authority and the attractive insignia of official station. Their advent into the village was marked by an ostentation of whatever grandeur and splendor they had at command. To the gaping multitude it was “the greatest show on earth,” while the trials proved a “Wild West.”
Sarah Good, a broken-down outcast, deserted by her husband, begging food from house to house, was first examined; the last examined was Tituba, the chief offender.
