QUEER PUNISHMENTS

Manawatu Times, 4 May 1926, Page 11

QUEER PUNISHMENTS

TO ITT THE CREME. RUDE AND GRIM METHODS. Yet another queer punishment has lately been recorded, in the shape of the sentence of an Ohio judge, who has ordered a banker convicted of negligently losing control of his car, which wrecked two other cars and a house, to serve a term as an anatomical model in the class rooms of the .School of Physiology of the University of Toledo. In more than one instance during the past year of two American magistrates have ordered criminally careless motorists to be confronted for various periods, ranging from minutes to hours, with the bodies of their victims. It is a rude and grim method of giving the offender a lesson which he will never forgot, and savors rather of the Dark Ages, or of the East, than of civilisation as we know it. Asia has the best of all claims to be regarded os the home of novel and dramatic punishments. Until recently, at any rate, the Emir of Bokhara used to have the spurious stock in trade of a counterfeiter of coinage smelted down and publicly ladled down his throat. There were very very few counterfeiters in Bokhara. Smoking used to be strictly prohibited there, in the Streets or at public gatherings. The lot of the offender was to have his face blacken- < cd —the local complexion is cafe au lait—and to be led round the city, after a flogging, on a donkey placarded with the story of his crime and punishment. Bokharan doctors, convicted by their peers of not showing enough alacrity to cure a lucrative patient and get him out and about again, were apt to bo beheaded. Did 1 any Indulge in pigeon racing on holy days, the birds were slain and tied ' round his neck; and ho was whipped 1 and sent round the bazaar quarter on 1 a police camel to advertise his shame ’

The Babylonians had some appropriate punishments, many of which have come to light through the researches of Professor Dolaporte. Drowning, for example, was the recognised penalty for a publican who sold drinks above the legal price. Even Gilbert’s “human Mikado” could hardly better this. If a jerrybuilt house fell down and killed the householder the architect was “for it.” The State executed him. If ho was not to be found his son was ex-

ecuted. Those must have been anxious days for architects’ progeny. Among the Tchukehees of North-east Siberia the family feud which is apt to bo followed by a long series of “blood revenges," battledore - and - shuttle-cocking to and fro between 3 two families after a murder, is often E avoided by the family of tho muderer > giving up a man to spend the rest of E his life as a slave in the family of , the victim. Another of their punlshi raents is reserved for tho next world. ■ They believe that before the spirit of i a dead man roaches heaven he lias to • walk through tho Country of Dogs, • where dog spirits will set upon him ) if ho has ill-treated dogs on earth; I otherwise they trot along, fawning on s him, and wagging their tails. A • jolly idea. i The only country in which cxecu- : tions are the concern of a profession- ■ al body, into whoso ranks promising ■ recruits aro steadily received in con- , siderable numbers, is China. It is really a dual trade. Even as a British chimneysweep has to combine his calling with carpet-beating to tide him over tho summer, the Chinese executioner has to be in audition, a good practical torturer. Torture was officially abolished some years ago, but iit is still extensively used. It sets a good example, say tho mandarins and provincial governors. Breaking on tho rack and similar pleasantries are more or less the humdrum daily round. It is among such elaborate ceremonies as ling Hal. or cutting up alive, that the scope foi the true artist is found. This is the punishment for murdering a parent, or three pesons in one family, or ror , the wife who kills her husband. Bo- ■ fore the abolition of the Mancnu dynasty it was the penalty also for persons who wrote or spoke against the Emperor. The decapitated heads of malefactors are still hung up in _ wicker bird cages at the side of a . well-frequented highway. General . Chang has been reported to have ] treated his dead enemy Kuo and ms ( wife to this indignity. After that one cannot view as excessively harsh tne ( novel punishment meted out in the ( Middle West of America to a woman ] convicted of malicious slandei, Accompanied by a policeman she had to ( take a walk through town every day ( for a fortnight, accosting and apoiogising to any of her victims who * might be encountered. c