Is it Really Witches?

While continuing to look for interesting articles, Genealogybank.com, which fit in with the upcoming holiday of Halloween this one, caught my eye. It appeared in the Kansas City Times out of Kansas City, MO in December of 1888. Obviously witches in the title caught my eye but then after reading it I wasn’t sure the reporter was really referring to witches.  I wonder if he was finding a creative way of reporting on the meeting of gossiping women in the community. I don’t know judge for yourself and let me know what your think.

When Witches Should Appear.

(New York Mail and Express.)

Guests at 5 o’clock tea must fancy themselves now and then participating in the ceremonies round a witches’ cauldron. The shades are drawn, but gas is tabooed, and the candles do not burn very high. In the semi-obscurity on tiptoes from group to group, waiting for the mysterious revels to begin. The logs in the fireplace throw out a fitful blaze, casting all manner of strange lights and shadows. By and by they burn down and only a handful of red coals is left. Then voices drop almost to whispers, and the only light seems to be shed by the blue flame of alcohol in the tea stand over which my lady’s kettle hangs simmering. It is weird, almost ghostly, and the curious thing is that nobody seems to know what it is for. Somebody says that somebody else came home from the country with a bruise on her forehead from a fall received while riding, and refused to light up until her face was well. Society caught the gloomy infection, and it is time some impetus was given the other way.