THE TRIAL BY ORDEAL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue VI, 9 February 1895, Page 128

THE TRIAL BY ORDEAL.

The ancients seem to have had greater faith in the rating care of Providence than we can profess to. They left full scope for the intervention of the ‘ divinity that shapes onr ends,' even in the proceedings of their law courts. The old trial by ordeal, predecessor of the trial by jury, sprang from an idea that Providence would not allow an innocent person to suffer. Such ordeals were often insisted on by the Grecian oracles, these oracles being frequently constituted the judges between man and man. Tne water ordeal at Ephesus was specially employed for women. The accused having given her oath of innocence was placed in the water with this oath inscribed on a tablet that hung round her neck. If innocent the water remained still, if guilty it rose till the tablet floated. Coming to Roman times, we meet the story of Tucco, the vestal, whose innocence was proved by her carr j ing water in a sieve—a story which may easily be paralleled by turning to Romish legends of the saints. But the Homans generally adhered to more modern principles of jurisdiction. If a crime was not clearly proved the accused went free, without the intervention of supernatural interference. With the early German tribes it was different. Menzel tells us that when * the truth could not be discovered by ordinary means the decision was left to God. Besides the ordeal by single combat, customary between freeborn men, there were also those by fire and water, to which women and slaves were subjected ; the hand or the foot being held upon red hot iron or in boiling water.’ Similar methods long prevailed in France, but the Germans were especially tenacious of them, and clang to them after other nations had turned to other means of justice. Strange to say, oar own trial by jury, is in itself a kind of survival of the trial by ordeal. The accused, in early Saxon times, instead of submitting to any other ordeal, offered to give his cause to the first dozen men that might be chosen, for them to judge it. By degrees, this form of ordeal, by its manifest superiority, ousted all the other old cruel and superstitious proceedings. Decidedly it is preferable to walking blindfold over a row of heated ploughshares, with the faint hope that Providence might keep the feet from contact with the red-hot iron. Trial by single combat, would also seem barbarous to us now, if suggested by puzzled lawyers; and as for the ordeal by touching the murdered body, even its picture 2 queness cannot make us regard it as a satisfactory method of discovering the murderer. When the witchcraft scare troubled the minds of clergy and people, many were the ordeali resorted to for tbe discovery of guilt. Most of these were excellent means for discovering guilt where there was none. One curious instance took place at Aylesbury, in England, when Susan Haynokes was weighed in the balance against a Bible; this took place in 1759. It does not appear what the judgment was to be ; but unless the Bible was exceedingly ponderous and the woman exceedingly light, poor Susannah must surely have outweighed Holy Scripture. In America numberless instances of blind perversion of justice abounded, when the pilgrim fathers instituted a persecution more cruel and unreasoning than any that they had themselves fled from. But it must not be supposed that trial by ordeal is a European growth alone ; for, setting aside its recognition in Scripture, it has been extensively practised from countless generations in India, Japan and other parts of Asia. Tbe Hindu law of Manu enjoined that an accused man should * take hold of fire,' or dive under water, or touch the heads of his wife and sons one by one. The man whom fire burns not, and water forces not up. and who suffers no harm, must be instantly held innocent of perjury.’ What may be signified by touching the heads of wife and children, hardly appears. In Japan certain characters are written on a piece of paper ; this is rolled up and swallowed by the accused, if guilty, it is supposed to cause him such inward disquiet that at last he confesses. The disquiet, one might imagine, would depend upon the size and quality of the paper. In cases of theft in India every member of the suspected household has to swallow a spoonful of rice, the thief being sometimes discovered by his nervous discomfort in swallowing. This seems to be very similar to that ordeal of the morsel of bread, much practised in Saxon times, which his monkish enemies aver to have caused the death of Godwin. In libel both accused and accuser are subjected to the same ordeal, which must make the libellers chary of lodging accusations. A poison is given to the suspected in Madagascar; if his stomach rejects it, he is guiltless: if not, it would seem that the proof and punishment go hand-in-hand. African modes of justice are very similar, and depend rather on the physical constitution of the accused than anything else. It is not surprising that untaught savages should adopt such methods ; bnt that Europe should have adhered to (them so long may well astonish us. England, happily, abolished these ordeals, with tbe exception of single combat, more early than some continental nations. The dnel survived as a kind of private ordeal. Early in the 13th Century ordeals were forbidden by edict. The superstitions connected with them of course long survived ; but trials and convictions were influenced by other and juster principles. Justice may still miscarry at times ; but its miscarriage is now, happily, the exception.