PRACTICE OF TORTURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 April 1934, Page 11

PRACTICE OF TORTURE

IN ENGLISH HISTORY The prominent part Which human torture has played in English history is made clear in a recently published book, “The History of Torture in England,” hv Dr. L. A. Parry. Dr. Parry emphasises that torture was never permitted by the Common Law of England, hut from Norman times onwards, and particularly in the times of the Tudors and the Stuarts, it was very frequently used on prisoners. The rulers of the land claimed that by Royal prerogative they ‘had the power to order torture at their discretion, and that this power'over-rode the Common Law.

/The comparatively straightforward methods of torture of earlier ‘times were subsequently subjected to innumerable refinements, much more horrible and often unmentionable. Dr. Parry catalogues them with gruesome effect, and gives instances of the employnient of the rack, tlie boots, the press, and the thumbscrew. The author also treats of the many allied punishments, such as “peine forte et dure,” burning, boiling, drowning, branding, mutilation, and the “Halifax Gibbet,” the forerunner of the guillotine, to mention only a few. Tlie book also deals with every kind of punishment for crime in English history. For GOO years, from Henry 11. to, George 111., there was a procession of unhappy wretches .to the Tyburn Tree, just by the site of Marble Arch. A story which Dr. Parry tells about Mammy Douglas, one' Of the most notorious of the. “Tyburn pewopeners,” is not without humour. These “pew-openers” erected grand stands and sold the seats 0,1 the “festive*’ occasion of an execution.

“In 1578 Dr. Henesy, adjudged guilty of treason, was humped oil a hurdle in tlie usual way to Tyburn, there to he swung off into eternity. The hanging of a doctor was not quite an everyday affair, and there was a rush for seats. Mammy Douglas observed that the demand was greater than the supply, and promptly raised the tickets. from 2s to 2s Gd. There was much grumbling about this sordid piece of profiteering, hut- that grumbling was nothing compared with the uproar when the doctor was, at the last moment, ‘most provokingly reprieved’! In the ensuing riot the ‘pews’ were reduced to matchwood, and abortive efforts were made to hang Mammy Douglas in the place of the reprieved doctor; but their praiseworthy efforts appear to have failed.” ' - -