A CHAPTER OF HORRORS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1838, 11 February 1887, Page 33

A CHAPTER OF HORRORS.

THE QUKEB PUNISHMENTS OI- DIFFERENT

NATIONS

The law, says an old writer, never makes a man honest ; it only makes him very uncomfortable when he is dishonest. Looking over the records of this and other countries, we are astonished at the various methods which have been adopted to cause discomfort to the law-breaker.

Some of the old classical writers describe very fully not only the punishments of earth, but even venture to speculate on the torments of "the under world." These latter punishments have as their chief characteristic "an unavailing hope." Thus, one man rolls a stone hundreds of times to the summit of a mountain, but the stone as often rebounds from his grasp just as his labour is finishing. He has to repeat, again and again this fruitless toil, knowing full well his labour is in vain. Pome maidens, who have been unfaithful to their vows, are doomed to carry water in bottomless pitchers; and another man, by name Tantalus, stands to the chin in water of which he cannot, drink, although he is sufferingthe pangs of thirst.

Drinking hemlock juice, a deadly poison, was the Grecian method of capital punishment. It was a refine 1 death compared with that of the Romans, who tied the criminal between two carriages, and then yoking horses into each, drove them in opposite directions, thus causing the poor wretch to be literally torn asunder.

The punishments to be witnessed even to this day in the East are also most peculiar, and to European minds vindictive in the extreme. The bastinado is dispensed on the soles of the bare feet, but it is not often carried so far as to cau=e death. The sticks used in Turkey are usually heavy staves, in other countries thin rattan canes endu.g in a fine tapering point. From the fact that the lower classes in the East go about everywhere barefooted, their feet become, as it were, case-hardened. As many as 2000 sticks have 'been broken over the feet of a criminal, and that would mean upwards of 6000 blows ! Imprisonment is reserved for burglars, and maiming is carried out ordinarily only on professional thieves. The method of inflicting this punishment is generally by cutting off the joint of a finger for the first offence, and a hand for the second, Sometimes a man will be lamed by taking away part of the main tendon of the leg. Blinding is scarcely ever resorted to, but occasionally the ears are cut off, the criminal in this, as in other cases, being taken through the large crowd of gazers in the bazaar to the place of execution. The punishment of death is inflicted in most cases by simply cutting the throat of tho. prisoner much in the way that a butcher slaughters a sheep.

In our own country there have been several very curious methods of punishments. Quartering and maiming the body was common in the early days of British history. The pillory was also used for the exposure and ridicule of offenders. At times, too, " the cell of little ease " was occupied by some offender. This cell was constructed on the principle that no comfort should be given to the person imprisoned ; there was neither sufficient room for standing, lying, nor even sitting comfortably.

But of all the kinds of punishment that of boiling to death was surely the mof>t vindictive and atrocious. It was made a capital punishment in England by Statute 22, Henry VIIT, 1531. One Ruse, a cook in the service of the Bishop of Rochester, had poisoned some soup, which caused the death of several persons, and it was to guard against such heinous actions that the punishment was enacted. This death penalty was uot long in force, being repealed during the next reign by Edward VI.

Burning was the usual punishment meted out to those changing their doctrinal faith. This method dates bnck to the first dawnings of English civilisation, for our Druidical ancp^tors used to sacrifice to their gods by binning all the condemned criminals.

Exile was also common. The love of conntry was a stronger factor in these early com--munities r than it is at present. We shall not stop here to dmionsti-ate this assertion, but shall point to the fact that being thus driven;' frxm Wijntry ajxflJwnjß was apu^isiiiaeafc $z \

tremely hateful to our primitive ancestors.

Beheading with the axe, maiden or guillotine, long held sway in Great Britain, indeed, up to the year 1747.. when Lord Lovat was the last to suffer this kind of death. This method was afterwards followed by the more humane plan of strangling, which", however, like the former kinds was done openly. All aware that secrecy is now the great thing aimed at in such kinds of punishment, a result, or more particularly a change, brought about by the advancing march of modern civilisation.

Witchcraft was very common four or five hundred years ago in Great Britain. Any person' taken and accused of having occult dealings with " the realm and spirits" was punished by drowning, which, by the way, is said to be the pleasantesfc death imaginable.

The pocket, too, had, and as often as yet, to bear punishment for the misdeeds of the moral life. Fines in lieu of corporeal restraint are now very common. They, too, date back into remotest times, for generally in those days the inflictor of the punishment was also the receiver of the fines paid down. Not only was material wealth taken from the criminal, but h^ had often to renounce his dignity as a man and become an abject slave.

The French had also some curious punishments. Prisoners were chained to galleys which they were forced to row day and night. Hardly any cessation of toil was allowed, and the poor wretches held out simply to escape the driver's lash. To enumerate all the methods is not our intention, suffice that we should mention the strangest of them all, viz., wearing the iron masJt for life. Into this mask the person's head was placed once and for all, nothing was seen of his features save his eyes and mouth ; death alone relieved the languishing victim.

Hitherto we have dealt with punishments inflicted by the community as a whole. It would, perhaps, be interesting to cull some of the most curious cases in which we find certain individuals faking the law into their own hands, and acting as their ingenuity or originality prompted tlu-m. To our minds, there is one which presents itself most vividly. A certain Sussex squire had a bailiff whom he discovered to have indulged in all kinds of malpractices. For these offenoes he was dismissed, and when getting his dismissal his master said, " For the sake of your wife and family I will do nothing to you, but after your death 1 will punish yon. severely." It may be supposed that the bailiff did not trouble himself much about this threat. But it was carried out. The man died ; the master took on himself the task of erecting his tombstone and composing his epitaph, which was as follows: —

IN MKMOItY OF JOHN THOMiS, HE WAS

This singular inscription can be seen to this day in Horsham churchyard. Naturally, anyone reading the three lines would ask, what was he ? And in this way the story of the bailiff's delinquencies went throughout the length and breadth of the country.

During the last century there lived in the city of Messina »n honest cobbler who was grieved by the lawless condition of his native town, which was the harbour for highway robbers and thieves of every description. The evils increased instead of diminishing, a result arising partly from the want of power in the government to chastise offenders. The cobbler saw the time for action had arrived, and so, at nights, provided with a short gun, he sallied out and waylaid such of the incorrigible offenders as he chanced to meet. He returned home after putting 1 them to death in the most stealthy manner possible. This he contir.ned doing for some time, but always eluded detection. From the bodies he Stole no money, but left them as as soon as life was extinct.. The efforts thus put forth by this man were successful ; no ruffian dared to appear outside the city walls, and Messina soon regained her reputation for safety. Under the promise of a reward the cobbler confessed his actions, was rewarded for his pains, but had to leave his native town- and settle in the territory of Genoa.

Readers of " Waverley ".nanst be familiar with the punishment Rob Roy M'Gregor was fond of inflicting on his English assailants. Whenever he caught any of the Southern soldiers in his territory he conveyed them to a " moss hole," in which he made them stand erect until they gradually sank out of sight altogether. While the poor wretches were pinking he told them the amount of progress they were making as he watched the gilt buttons on their uniform disappear one by one 1