P. T. Barnum

“ The most usual points in a case of witchcraft were, that the witch had sold herself to the devil for all eternity, in order to get the power during a few years of earthly life, to inflict a few pains on the persons of those she disliked, or to cause them to lose part of their property. ”

“ While therefore some of us may perhaps be justly thankful for safety from such horrible follies as these, still we can not properly feel very proud of the progress of humanity, since after not less than six thousand years of existence and eighteen hundred of revelation, so many believers in witchcraft still exist among the most civilized nations. ”

“ In 1858, there were in full blast in New York and Brooklyn sixteen witches and two wizards. One of these wizards was a black man; a very proper style of person to deal with the black art.
Witch means, a woman who practices sorcery under an agreement with the devil, who helps her. Before the Christian era, the Jewish witch was a mere diviner or at most a raiser of the dead, and the Gentile witch was a poisoner, a maker of philtres or love potions, and a vulgar sort of magician. The devil part of the business did not begin until a good while after Christ. ”

“ During the last century or so, again, while witchcraft has been extensively believed in, the witch has degenerated into a very vulgar and poverty stricken sort of conjuring woman. Take our New York city witches, for instance. They live in cheap and dirty streets that smell bad ”

“ But such a belief was universal, and hundreds of the witches themselves confessed as much as I have described, and more, with numerous details, and they were burnt alive for their trouble. The extent of wholesale murdering perpetrated under forms of law, on charges of witchcraft, is astonishing. ”

“ Yes: but are the French and Germans and English and Americans poor ignorant creatures too? They are, if the belief and practice of witchcraft among them is any test; for in all those countries there are witches. ”

“ In the district of Como in Italy, a thousand persons were burned as witches in the single year 1524, besides over a hundred a year for several years after wards. Seventeen thousand persons were executed for witchcraft in Scotland during thirty-nine years, ending with 1603. ”

“ Their rooms are very ill furnished, and often beset with wash-tubs, swill-pails, mops and soiled clothes; their personal appearance is commonly unclean, homely, vulgar, coarse, and ignorant, and often rummy. ”