Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/106

 creature whom nobody knew, tied in a sack, and thrown into the river, to see if she would sink or swim. Then lowering her voice, she would assert that other people, as well as herself, were confident that she was a witch, for that she had been seen to rise into the air upon a broomstick so high, that she appeared no larger than a nighthawk. This mischievous narrator found listeners; for at that period, low scandal, and the belief in the contracts of man with evil demons, were popular among the vulgar. Superstition has since vanished before the sway of superiour illumination; but slander still thrives on the faults of mankind. They are still forced into daily circulation, though not always by those, whom society condemns as ignorant, worthless, or malignant.