SAVING BY TORTURE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 10058, 27 July 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

SAVING BY TORTURE.

A writer in the Jane number of the Nineteenth Century essiys to show that the "unfortunate" people who were oharged with wilfnl murder in connection with the witeh-barnfng oase at Olonmel, noticed in these columns some weeks ago, were the ignorant instruments of a wide-spread superstition. He claims that it was not a witoh-burnine case at all, and ought to be called manslaughter rather than murder. The facts published at the time of the horrible ocourrrence will still' be fresh in the minds of many of onr readers. A man named Gleary, an Irish peasant, wbo believed his wife to be " possessed of a fairy," proceeded to beat and burn the unhappy woman with the objeot of ejecting the evil spirit. As the woman, who appears to hare been Buffering from some nervous complaint, naturally grow worse under this treatment, Cloary called in the assistance of eight or nine of his neighbors, and between them they managed to torture the remnant of life oat of the frail body. The superstition which suggested the terrible cruelties praotlsed.upon the woman is common amongst primitive men. They know nothing about germs, microbes, nerves, or laws of Nature, and when the simplest of natural phenomena, like disease, death, or storm, come under their notice, they attribute them to the work of some malignant spirit. The Patagoniana regard all disease aa the work of an evil spirit, and among the Australian blacks illness war thought to arise from the ghoßts of dead men gnawing the livers of the living. The Veddahs of Oeylon never administer medicine to the siok, but make offerings to the demon who has sent the disease, and in Tonquin the magicians are credited with the power of "driving out devils." Among the Vancouver Indians the doctor used to pommel bis patient while all the family beat sticks together in order to. frighten the evil spirit away, and in many Eastern countries similar practices prevailed. It is rather humiliating to find the superstitions of untutored savageß quoted as exoases for the ignorance of professing Christians in a Christian lan-3 ; but there oan be very little doubt that Bridget Cleary's murderers really thought that the tortures they inflicted upon the poor woman were necessary for the salvation of her soul, and the Judge and jury before whom they were tried appear to have made a reasonable allowance for their benighted condition. The husband, we learn from a reoent cablegram, was sentenoed to twenty years' imprisonment, and si* of his accomplices to terms of from si* months to five Tears.