The Percy Anecdotes: |
'Ah I little think they -- How many bleed
By shameful variance betwixt man and man;
How many pine in want and dungeon gloom;
Shut from the common air, and common
use of their own limbs.' - THOMSON
ALTHOUGH the English criminal code is now the most severe of any in Europe, yet it is certain that it owes none of its severity to our ancestors. The Anglo-Saxons had very few capital punishments; and although when Alfred the Great ascended the throne, the country was overrun by a foreign invader, and was remarkable for licentiousness and crimes, yet he ventured, even in these perilous times, to mitigate still further the severity of the laws, and abolished the penalty of death for every crime except treason and murder. 'The consequence was,' says his historian, 'that such was the general security throughout the country towards the conclusion of his reign, that a child could walk from one end to the other with a purse of gold around its neck in perfect security.'
So deeply was this system of judicial clemency engraven on the character of the nation, that the Danes, who overturned almost every Anglo-Saxon institution, permitted the laws in regard to capital punishments to preserve all their lenity. The code of Canute in one of its clauses on showing mercy in judgment, thus commences:
'We desire, though any man sin, and deeply involve himself in iniquity, yet that his punishment be moderate, so that it be merciful before God, and tolerable in the sight of man; and let him who giveth judgment consider what he himself desireth when he prays thus: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." And we forbid that Christian men should be condemned to death on any slight cause. Let discipline be freely administered for the benefit of the people; but let not men for a little cause destroy the handiwork of God, and the purchase of Christ, so dearly bought.'
But the most remarkable proselyte that ever was gained to the doctrine of mild punishments was William the Conqueror, who is described by all his biographers as a sanguinary and merciless tyrant. He is described by the monkish chroniclers as hating the natives; and that 'he made large forests for the deer, and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever killed a hart or a hind should be blinded. As he forbade the deer, so also the boars; and he loved the tall stags as if he were their father.' Terrible as the king was to his subjects in forest laws, yet the severity of his temper yielded to the prevalent doctrines of his age; for he concludes both his codes of laws, issued at the commencement and towards the conclusion of his reign, with these words: 'I prohibit that any man shall be put to death for any cause whatever.'
Thus the three most distinguished lawgivers of the Anglo-Saxon, the Danish, and the Norman line, by their own examples, prove that British law, in its origin and source, was peculiarly merciful and tender of human life. Were other instances wanted in proof of this fact, they might be found in the declaration of Lord Coke, that most of our capital enactments are by statute; and of Sir Henry Spelman, who says, that while all other things have grown dearer, the life of man is estimated at a lower rate by us than by our ancestors; and Blackstone, in recapitulating the great changes which have taken place in this country, thinks none greater and none more to be lamented than the change from the great mercy of our ancestors to the extreme severity of our modern law.
In the infancy of states, the idea of capital punishments might naturally enough suggest itself, as when any one had committed an offence and disturbed the peace of society, the question would then first arise, 'How shall we prevent these things?' The answer most likely to occur to a set of barbarians, would be, 'Extirpate the offenders, and give yourselves no further trouble about it.'
Such is the practice among the Hottentots, who have no fixed law to direct them in the distribution of justice. Consequently, when any offence has been committed, there is no form of trial, or proportion of punishment to offences; but the Kraal (village) is called together, the delinquent is placed in the midst, and without further ceremony, demolished with their clubs, the chief striking the first blow.
Feudal times, however, furnish us with a striking exception to the barbarity of infant states. Every one will acknowledge the imperfection of this form of government, and yet under it almost all crimes were restrained by pecuniary fines, and few capital punishments were in use.
Under the consulship of Acilius Glabrio, and Piso, the Acilian law was made to prevent the intriguing for places; by which the guilty were condemned to a fine; they could not be admitted into the rank of senators, nor nominated to any public office. Dio says, that the Senate engaged the consuls to propose this law, by reason that C. Cornelius, the tribune, had resolved to cause more severe punishments to be enacted against this crime, to which the people seemed much inclined. The Senate judged rightly, that excessive punishments would indeed strike terror into the minds of the people, but that they must also have this effect, that there would be no one afterwards to accuse or condemn; whereas, by proposing moderate penalties, there would always be judges and accusers.
While the Romans were besieging the city of Falisca, a schoolmaster contrived to lead the children of the principal men of the city into the Roman camp. The novelty of such baseness surprised them, and they so much abhorred it, that they immediately ordered the arms of the traitor to be tied, and giving each of the scholars a whip, bade them whip their master back to the city, and then return to their parents. The boys executed their task so well in this instance, that the wretch died under their blows as they entered the city. The generosity of the Romans touched the Faliscans so sensibly, that the next day they submitted themselves to the Romans on honourable terms.
'And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man?'
COWPER.
In 1306, the Countess of Buchan, who had been extremely active in the cause of Bruce, and even placed the crown on his head, was, by the command of King Edward, shut up in a wooden cage in one of the towers of Berwick Castle; as was Mary, sister to Bruce, in the same manner, in the castle of Roxburgh.
The order to the Chamberlain of Scotland, or his lieutenant in Berwick, for making the cage for the Countess of Buchan, was by writ of privy seal; by which he was directed to make in one of the turrets of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which he should find the most convenient, a strong cage of lattice-work, constructed with posts and bars, and well strengthened with iron. This cage to be so contrived, that the Countess might have therein the necessary convenience, proper care being taken that it did not lessen the security of her person; that the said Countess being put in this cage, should be so carefully guarded, that she should not by any means go out of it; that a woman or two of the town of Berwick, of unsuspected character, should be appointed to administer her food and drink, and attend her on other occasions; and that he should cause her to be so strictly guarded in the said cage, as not to be permitted to speak to any person, man or woman, of the Scottish nation, or any other, except the woman or women assigned to attend her, and her other guards.'
Matthew of Westminster, a contemporary writer, says, that the king declared, that as she did not strike with the sword, she should not die with the sword, but ordered her to be shut up in an habitation of stone and iron, shaped like a crown, and to be hung out at Berwick in the open air, for a spectacle and everlasting reproach, while living and dead, to all that passed by.
In the year 1770, the four knights who slew Thomas 'a Becket, fled for refuge to Knaresborough Castle; their names were Sir Hugh de Morville, whose descendants were settled in Cumberland, where the sword with which he slew Thomas a Becket was long kept, in memory of the circumstance; Sir Richard Breton; Sir William Tracey; Sir Reginald Fitz-urse, or Bear's son. They remained shut up for a year; but submitting to the church, were pardoned on condition of performing a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Pope Alexander the Sixth went into a vineyard near the Vatican, where his son Caesar Borgia, Duke of Valence, meaning to poison Adrian Cardinal Cornetti, had sent certain bottles of wine mixed with poison, and delivered them to a servant, who knew nothing of the matter, commanding him, that should touch them but by his appoint It happened that the Pope came in some time before supper, and being very thirsty, through the immoderate heat of the season, called for some drink. The servant who had the poisoned wine in keeping, thinking that it had been committed to him as a special and precious sort of wine, brought a cup of it to the Pope, and while he was drinking, his son Borgia came in, and drank also of the same. Both were poisoned, but the Pope only died; his son, by the strength of youth and nature, and use of potent remedies, recovered.
Lysander having obtained a victory over the Athenians, the prisoners were ordered to be tried, in consequence of an accusation brought against that nation of having thrown all the captives of two galleys down a precipice, and of having resolved, in full assembly, to cut off the heads of those whom they should chance to make prisoners. The Athenians were therefore all massacred, except Adymantes, who had opposed the decree of his brother senators.
Reigns of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth.
The inefficacy of the extreme severity of punishment, is strikingly exemplified in the reign of Henry VIll., remarkable for the abundance of its crimes, which certainly did not arise from the mildness of punishment. In that reign alone, says his historian, seventy-two thousand executions took place for robberies alone, exclusive of the religious murders, which are known to have been numerous, amounting, on an average, to six executions a day, Sundays included, during the whole of Henry VIII.'s reign.
That this barbarous severity of the law did not prevent crime, we have the authority of Sir Thomas More, who introduces into his works a dialogue between himself and a lawyer. The lawyer applauds the severity of the law, and exults in the fact, that he had himself seen twenty executed on the same scaffold. But he concludes by confessing, that it was a little difficult for him to explain how it happened, that 'while so many thieves were daily hanged, so many still remained in the country, who were robbing in all places.'
Although these severities were ineffectual during the reign of Henry VIII., yet it might be supposed that some benefit would have accrued from them at its conclusion, and that the race of robbers would have been exterminated. This, however, was not the case. In Strype's 'Annals,' there is a letter from a magistrate of Somersetshire, to the Lord Chief Justice, which gives an account of the state of society in that county, during the 'glorious days of good Queen Bess;' and such an account as may make us all rejoice, that those 'glorious days' have long since passed away. The magistrate writes:- 'I may justly say, that the able men that are abroad, seeking the spoil and confusion of the land, are able, if they were reduced to good subjection, to give the greatest enemy her majesty hath a strong battle, and, as they are now, are so much strength to the enemy. Besides, the generation that daily springeth from them, is likely to be most wicked. These spare neither rich nor poor; but whether it be great gaine or small, all is fish that cometh to net with them; and yet I saie, both they and the rest are trussed up apace.'
The same magistrate, who is a strong advocate for the severity of the law, and calls the statute for the execution of gipsies, 'that godly edict,' very unconsciously lets us into the secret why criminals so much abounded in his time; he says: 'In which default of justice, may wicked thieves escape. For most commonly the most simple countrymen and women, looking no farther than to the loss of their own goods, are of opinion that they would not procure any man's death, for all the goods in the world.'
Queen Elizabeth was a great advocate for the certainty of punishment, and the rigid exertion of the laws. In a speech which she directed to be made to her Parliament, she says, 'a law without execution, is but a body without life, a cause without an effect, a countenance of a thing, and indeed nothing;' again, 'the making of laws without execution, does very much harm, for that breeds and brings forth contempt of laws, and law-makers, and of all magistrates.'
This queen, who makes such loud complaints of the non-execution of her laws, contrived to execute more than five hundred criminals in the year, with which number she was so little satisfied, that she threatened to send private persons to see her penal laws executed 'for profit and gain's sake.' It appears that her majesty did not threaten in vain; for soon after this a complaint was made in Parliament, that the stipendiary magistrate of that day was 'a kind of living creature, who, for half a dozen of chickens, would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes.'
Parricide was by the Roman law punished in a much severer manner than any other kind of homicide. After being scourged, 'the delinquents were sowed up in a leathern sack, with a live dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and so cast into the sea.' Solon, it is true, in his laws made none against parricide, conceiving it impossible that any one should be guilty of so unnatural a barbarity. The Persians, according to Herodotus, entertained the same notion, when they adjudged all persons who killed their reputed parents to be illegitimate; and to some such reason as this must be imputed the omission of an exemplary punishment for this crime in the English laws; which treat it no otherwise than as simple murder, unless the child is also the servant of the parent.
The furca, an instrument of punishment among the Romans, was a piece of timber resembling a fork. The punishment of the furca was of three kinds: the first only ignominious, when a master for small offences, compelled a servant to carry a furca on his shoulders about the city. The second was penal, when the party was led about the circus, or other place, with the furca about his neck, and whipped all the way. The third was capital, when the malefactor having his head fastened on the furca, was whipped to death.
The gallows for executing criminals by hanging, is still called furca on the continent, particularly in France and Italy. In the latter country, the name is still appropriate, the gallows being a real fork driven into the ground; across the legs of it a beam is laid, to which the rope is fastened.
The records of human punishment scarcely furnish an instance in which torture was so ingeniously and barbarously studied, as in the execution of Ravaillac, the assassin of Henry IV. of France. An authentic account of this event, is to be found in a scarce blackletter tract, entitled, 'The terrible and deserved Death of Francis Ravaillack, shewing the manner of his strange torments at his execution, as it was printed in French in the several bookes published by authoretee.'
After noticing the trial of Ravaillac, who pleaded guilty, the tract states that he was carried to execution in the following manner:
'First, (naked in his shirt) he was brought out of the Consergery, (being the prison for the palace) with a lighted torch of two pownd waight in one hand, and the knife (wherewith he killed the king) chained to the other hand so openly to be seene, that the least childe there present might behold it; after this, he was placed standing upright in a tumbrell or dung cart, and so from thence, conducted with a gard of cittizens, to the capitall church in Paris, where being adjudged to do penance, he had bene made a sacrafize to the rage of the rude people, had not there bin apoynted officers to see his execution prevented it.
'After this, being accompanied to the place of execution with two doctors of divinitie, all the way perswading him to save his soule from everlasting punishment, by revealing and laying oppen his assocyates therein, which he would not, but stiffly (though ungraciously) tooke the bloody burthen upon his owne shoulders, withstanding, even to the death, all faire promises whatsoever. In this manner was he carried to the greve being a spacious streete, and about the middle of Paris, where was builded a very substancial scaffould of strong timber, whereupon, according to his judgment, he was to be tormented to death. Du Viguit, the king's aturney-generall, was apoynted principall to see the execution, and there to gather (if he could) some further light of this unchristianlike conspiracie.
'This here following was the manner of his death, an example of terror made knowne to the world, to convert all bloody minded traytors from the like enterprise. At his first coming upon the scaffold, he crossed himselfe directly over the breast, a signe that he did live and dye an obstinate papist, whereupon by the executioners he was bound to an engine of wood and iron, made like to a S. Andrew's crosse, according to the fashion of his body, and then the hand with the knife chayned to it (wherewith he slew the king), and halfe the arme was put into an artificial furnace, then flaming with fire and brimstone, wherein the knife, his right hand, and halfe the arme adjoyning it, was in a most terrible manner consumed, yet nothing at all would he confesse.' The rest of the details are too horrible to be repeated. The wretched criminal would give no other reason for the crime he had committed, than 'the king had tolerated two religions in the kingdom.' 'Oh! small occasion.' exclaims the writer of this narrative, 'that for this cause, one servile slave should thus quench the great light of France, whose brightness glistened through Europe!'
The punishment of burning alive, horrible as it is, has been inflicted by several communities. It was adopted with many variations among the Babylonians and the Hebrews. It was enacted at Rome, by the code of the twelve tables, against incendiaries; and examples of it frequently occur in the early ages of the French monarchy. In France, the convict wearing a shirt dipped in sulphur, is bound with an iron chain to a stake. This is the most rigorous of all the ordinary punishments; and yet, though inflicted in cases of witchcraft, sacrilege, blasphemy, heresy, it is not extended to the more heinous crime of parricide.
In England, burning alive has been the punishment for several crimes, particularly for the imputed one of heresy, of which Smithfield was so often the scene in the reigns of Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth.
Among the spectators at the execution of Badly, the tailor, who was burnt in Smithfield for heresy, was Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V. Struck with pity at the miserable cries of the unhappy victim, the prince commanded the fire to be extinguished, and offered him a pension if he would retract his opinions. But this Badly declined to do, and perished resolute in his faith.
When James the Sixth of Scotland was on his way to London, to occupy the English throne, he gave a sad omen of his reign by an act of wanton despotism. A cutpurse, who had followed the king's retinue from Berwilek, was taken at Newark-on-Trent 'in the fact;' and having confessed his guilt, the king, of his own authority, and without even the form of trial, directed a warrant to the Recorder of Newark to have him hanged, which was executed accordingly. Although not the slightest resistance was made to this needless and daring violation of the laws of England, and of the first principles of all civilized government, yet it made a deep impression. The Tudors, with all their tyranny, had never been guilty of so wanton an outrage on the most venerated institution of the countrytrial by jury; and men wondered what further innovations the Scottish Solomon would make.
In the year 1530, Smithfield, which had been used as a place for the execution of felons, even before the year 1219, was the scene of a most severe and singular punishment, inflicted on one John Roose, a cook, who had poisoned seventeen persons of the Bishop of Rochester's household, two of whom died. By a retrospective law, he was sentenced to be boiled to death; a judgment, horrible as it was, which was carried into execution. In 1541, Margaret Davie, a young woman, suffered in he same place and manner, for a similar crime.
A young lady of high birth and fashion at Rome, but unfortunately of the number of Vestal virgins, became involved in a fatal snare, by a line which dropped carelessly from her pen. The Vestals were allowed great honours and great liberty; and this lady had probably been pleasantly entertained by some married friend, from whose demeanour she had formed a very favourable idea of wedlock. Actuated by some motive, she wrote on a scroll, in the ecstacy of her spirit, 'Felices Nuptae! Moriar ni nubere dulce est.' Hail, happy bride! I would I were dead or wedded.
The verse was unhappily found, and her handwriting being known, she was accused as having incurred the punishment due to those who disgraced the temple of Vesta, that of being buried alive. Seneca reports the argument on both sides, but does not gives us the result.
It seems astonishing that the usage of the administration of torture should be said to arise from a tenderness for the lives of men; and yet in the civil law this is the reason given for its introduction, and its subsequent adoption by the French and other foreign nations; namely, because the laws cannot endure that any man should die upon the evidence of a false, or even a single, witness, and therefore contrived this means that innocence should manifest itself by a stout denial of guilt, or by a plain confession; thus estimating a man's virtue by the strength of his constitution; and his guilt by the sensibility of his nerves. Beccaria, in an exquisite piece of raillery, ridicules this doctrine, and has proposed the following problem, which the advocates of torture should resolve before they again plead in its behalf:- 'The force of the muscles, and the sensibility of the nerves, of an innocent person, being given, it is required to find the degree of pain necessary to make him confess himself guilty of a given crime.'
The trial by rack or torture is utterly unknown to the laws of England; though once when the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, with other ministers of Henry the Sixth, had formed a design of changing the law, they erected a rack for torture, which, in derision, was called the Duke of Exeter's daughter, and still remains in the Tower of London, where it was occasionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
When Felton, upon his examination at the Council Board, declared, as he had always done, that no man living had instigated him to the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, or knew of his intention, the Bishop of London said to him. 'If you will not confess, you must be put to the rack.' Felton calmly replied, 'If it must be so, I know not whom I may accuse in the extremity of torture, Bishop Laud, or perhaps any lord at this Board.' Laud having proposed the rack, the matter was shortly debated in the council, and afterwards referred to the judges, who unanimously resolved that the rack could not be legally used.
When the news of Charles I.'s fate reached Sweden, though it made a great noise, yet very few thought of it with any horror; nay, the French ambassador said it ought to be a warning to all princes, how they exceeded the bounds of justice and moderation. On its first mention at court, the Queen Christina turned to a nobleman who came in a moment after, and said, 'My lord, the English have cut off their king's head, for making no use of it, and they have acted very wisely.'
Charles II. and Lord William Russel.
It has been held by Sir Matthew Hale and Sir Edward Coke, that even the king cannot change the punishment of the law, by altering the hanging or burning into beheading, though when the last is part of the sentence, the king may remit the rest; but others have thought, and more justly, that this prerogative being founded in mercy, and immemorially exercised by the crown, is part of the common law; for hitherto, in every instance, all these exchanges have been in favour of that godlike attribute of royalty-mercy.
When Lord Strafford was executed for the popish plot, in the reign of King Charles II., the sheriffs of London having received the king's writ for beheading him, petitioned the House of Lords for a command or order how the judgment should be executed; for as he had been prosecuted by impeachment, they entertained an idea, which Lord Russel is said to have sanctioned, that the king could not pardon any part of the sentence. The lords resolved that the scruples of the sheriffs were unnecessary, and declared that the king's writ ought to be obeyed. Disappointed of raising a flame in that assembly, they immediately signified to the House of Commons, by one of the members, that they were not satisfied as to the power of the said writ. That House took two days to consider of it, and then sullenly resolved that the house was content that the sheriffs should execute Lord Strafford by severing his head from his body.
When Lord Russel was afterwards condemned for high treason upon indictment, the king, when he remitted the ignominious part of the sentence, observed, that 'his lordship would now find he was possessed of that prerogative which in the case of Lord Strafford he had denied him.' Were this really the case, it is difficult to know which most to disapprove of, the indecent and sanguinary zeal of the subject, or the cool and cruel sarcasm of the sovereign.
The attempt of the infamous assassin Blood, upon the life of the great and good Duke of Ormond, in the time of Charles II., was suspected to have been contrived by the Duke of Buckingham. Ormond himself overlooked it, but his son, the young Earl of Ossory, who was warm, brave, an spirited, did not preserve so cool a temper upon the occasion. While Buckingham was standing behind the king this young earl advanced to him with a stern aspect, 'My lord,' said he, in a low and sullen voice, 'I well know that you were at the bottom of the late attempt of Blood. Take notice, should my father come to an untimely or violent death, I shall consider you as the assassin; I shall pistol you as the assassin; I shall pistol you, though you stand behind the king; I tell it you in his majesty's presence, that you may be sure I shall keep my word.'
A person sentenced to the pillory, must have one sentence strictly executed upon him; and if the officer gives him any indulgence, he is liable to be punished in a summary manner, on application to the court. An instance in which this rigid adherence to the strictness of punishment was violated, occurred in the case of Shebbeare, who, in the year 1758, was sentenced to be set in and upon the pillory.
It appeared that Beardmore, who, as undersheriff, was to see the sentence executed, indulged Shebbeare so far as not to put him in the pillory, but simply to stand on the platform. The attorney-general therefore, applied for an attachment against Beardmore, to punish him for a contempt of the court, in taking upon himself to remit this part of the sentence, pronounced upon Shebbeare. The attorney-general produced affidavits, which were very full in asserting that Shebbeare only stood upon the platform of the pillory, unconfined, and at his ease, attended by a servant in livery (which servant and livery were hired for this occasion only), holding an umbrella over his head all the time; but his head, hands, neck, and arms, were not at all confined, or put into the holes of the pillory; only that he sometimes put his hands upon the holes of the pillory, in order to rest himself. And it was proved, that Mr. Beardmore attended as under-sheriff, with his wand; and that he treated the criminal with great complaisance, in taking him to and from the pillory.
The counsel on behalf of Mr. Beardmore, produced his affidavit, stating, that his officiating at all in this affair was quite casual and unexpected, on a sudden message from his brother under-sheriff. It was as full and explicit as possible, 'that he had no sort of design or intention, either directly or indirectly, to favour Shebbeare; that he gave no particular direction to his under officers about it;' but meant and intended that this sentence should be executed in the usual and ordinary manner, as other sentences of the like kind were and used to be executed; and that he stood at a shop opposite the pillory, during the whole time, without almost ever taking his eyes off from it during the whole time, in, order to see the sentence properly executed;, and that he would have obliged him to stand in what he (Mr. Beardmore) took to be the proper manner, if Shebbeare had offered to withdraw himself from such position.' And he positively swore, 'that according to the best information he could get, he looked upon the manner in which Shebbeare stood, to be the usual and proper manner of standing, pursuant to rules worded as this rule is; and that he did, according to the best of his judgment, fully and duly execute the judgment of the court in the usual and common manner.'
Fourteen or fifteen affidavits were at the same time produced, proving that the manner in which Shebbeare actually stood, was with, 'his hands in and through the small holes, and his head and face fully exposed through some of them said in and through) the large hole: and that he stood so during the whole time that the sentence required him to stand.
And several of the deponents (sherrif's officers and others) swore positively that the standing without confining the head, was the usual ordinary manner, and had been so for thirty or forty years in Middlesex, of criminals pursuant to rules of this kind, and that it had been usual in that county, not to fasten or confine the head in the pillory, for a great many years backwards, and ever since one or two persons who were locked down in the pillory had been killed; and several of them particularized how much inconvenience might follow from fastening it down upon the head. And two of the sheriff's officers swore, 'that they always deemed and conceived it to be a full execution of the words of the rule, to stand as this man stood, with the hands in, and the head and face exposed through the holes of the pillory.
Mr. Beardmore and his counsel admitted (or at least did not pretend to contradict) that his arms were not put through the small holes, and that the pillory was not shut down upon Shebbeare, nor his head absolutely thrust through it; which the sheriff's officers swore they did not apprehend to be necessary or usual unless the person was refractory. Neither, indeed, was it pretended that the upper board of this pillory was at all let down over his neck.
Mr. Howard observed, (amongst other things) that the sentence of quartering and burning the bowels of traitors is never strictly executed, nor the punishment of burning in the hand, which is constantly and notoriously done in the face, and with the knowledge of the judges themselves, with a cold iron.
Lord Mansfield declared that the charge, if true, was a disobedience to the rules of the Court by their own officer, and as such, liable to a summary punishment. Justices Denison, Foster, and Wilmot, were of the same opinion, and an attachment was issued against Beardmore. He was brought up, and sentenced to two months' imprisonment, and a fine Of £30.
Among the Indians of America, murder is still considered as a civil injury, left to individual punishment or revenge. The murderer may even appease the wrath of the relatives of the murdered by covering the body; a phrase which combines at once an elegant sentiment of hiding a distressful and irritating object from the eyes of its natural lovers and avengers, and a worldly satisfaction of the more sordid feelings of the injured, by offering an atonement in goods. The American Indians cover the body by heaping upon it clothing and trinkets, and other articles of value.
In Turkey it is considered the business of the next relations, and of them only, to avenge the slaughter of their kinsmen; and that if they rather choose to compound the matter for money, nothing more should be said about it.
The appeal of murder, now happily abolished in this country, was founded upon the same principle; even after the appeal was brought, the appellor might accept a pecuniary compensation. Such was the case of the Kennedies, who, in 1770, were tried for the murder of a watchman on Westminster Bridge. They were found guilty, and sentence of death was passed on them; but they were respited, and afterwards pardoned, on condition of transporting themselves for life. At the following session, the widow of the murdered man brought an appeal; they were brought to the bar of the Court of King's Bench, in order to plead to the appeal; but the widow having accepted the sum Of £350 as a compensation, did not appear, and suffered a non-suit.
In one of the Bombay journals for 1814, there is the following account of the punishment of a criminal at Baroda, by an elephant. The man was a slave, and two days before had murdered his master, brother to a native chieftain, named Ameer Sahib. About eleven o'clock the elephant was brought out, with only the driver on his back, surrounded by natives with bamboos in their hands. The criminal was placed three yards behind on the ground, his legs tied by three ropes, which were fastened to a ring on the right hind leg of the animal. At every step the elephant took, it jerked him forwards, and eight or ten steps must have dislocated every limb, for they were loose and broken when the elephant had proceeded five hundred yards. The man though covered with mud, showed every sign of life, and seemed to be in the most excruciating torments. After having been tortured in this manner about an hour, he was taken to the outside of the town, when the elephant, which is instructed for such purposes, is backed, and puts his foot on the head of the criminal.
'Among other curious circumstances in my administration of justice at Dhuborg,' (says Mr. Forbes in his 'Oriental Memoirs,') 'I was sometimes obliged to admit of the ordeal trial. In the first instance, a man was accused of stealing a child covered with jewels, which is a common mode of adorning infants among the wealthy Hindoos. Many circumstances appeared against him, on which he demanded the ordeal. It was a measure to which I was very averse, but at the particular request of the Hindoo arbitrators, who sat on the carpet of justice, and especially at the earnest entreaty of the child's parents, I consented. A cauldron of boiling oil was brought into the dubar, and, after a short ceremony by the Brahmins, the accused person, without showing any anxiety, dipped his hand to the bottom, and took out a small silver coin, which I still preserve in remembrance of this transaction. He did not appear to have sustained any damage, or to suffer the smallest pain; but the process went on no further, as the parents declared themselves perfectly convinced of his innocence.
In India there are various sorts of ordeal, which in several parts of that vast empire is still the favourite and common mode of deciding disputes, not only between individuals, but in casses affecting a whole tribe. A few years ago, the Koolies of a village in the most northern part of Guzerat, were accused of having seized and imprisoned a Bohra, and of extorting a bond from him for four hundred and fifty rupees. The Thakurda, or chief, a Khemaria Koolie, named Wagajee, denied every part of the charge, and for the proof of his innocence and that of his people, offered to submit to trial by any kind of ordeal.
The Bohra agreed to the trial, and it was determined the Koolie should immerse his hand in a vessel of boiling oil. A large copper pot, called by the natives, Kurye, full of oil, was put on a fire in the market-place, and a pair of blacksmith's bellows applied until it became very hot; a rupee was then thrown into it.
The Koolie came forward, stripped himself, and bathed, saying his prayers, and protesting his innocence; he resisted all attempts to dissuade him from the trial.
It is a vulgar, but erroneous opinion, that the people of Hindoostan are insensible and indifferent to the miseries and misfortunes of their fellow-creatures; on this occasion, the crowd assembled seemed universally impressed with the awfulness of an immediate appeal to the Deity, and prayed devoutly that if the Koolie were innocent, he might pass through his test unhurt.
After the ceremonies, Wagajee walked up to the oil, which appeared boiling, and with great unconcern dipped his hand into it, and laid hold of the rupee, which however slipped out of his fingers into the oil again; he then held up his hand, that the spectators might satisfy themselves of his veracity. His hand appeared as if he had merely put it in cold oil; there were no signs of burn or scald whatever upon it. He was absolved, and dismissed with a present of a new turban, amidst the gratulations of his friends and the multitude.
'They have an artifice at Newcastle-under Line and Walsall (says Dr. Plott in his 'History of Staffordshire'), for correcting of scolds, which it does too so effectually and so very safely, that I look upon it as much to be preferred to the cucking-stool, which not only endangers the health of the Party, but also gives the tongue liberty 'twixt every dip, to neither of which this is at all liable; it being such a bridle for the tongue, as not only deprives them of speech, but brings shame for the transgression, and humility thereupon before it is taken off; which being put upon the offender by order of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind, she is led round the town by an officer, to her shame; nor is it taken off till after the party begins to show all external signs imaginable, of humiliation and amendment.'
This instrument, which was called the franks, may properly be termed an iron mask, having a spike so contrived as to enter the mouth, and hold down the noisy organ. If the offender attempts to speak when undergoing this punishment, a sharp hint is given of the necessity of preserving silence.
The ducking or cucking stool for the punishmeat of scolds, was formerly as common in every parish in England, as the stocks or the whipping-post. It was also called a tumbrel, tribuck, trebucket, and a thewe. It consisted of a chair, fixed at the end of a long pole, in which the offenders being seated, were immersed in some muddy or dirty pond.
The ducking-stool is an instrument of punishment of great antiquity. Bourne says it was in use in this country in the time of the Saxons, by whom it was described to be 'cathedra in quo rixosae mulieres sedentes aquis demergebantur.'
The punishment of the ducking-stool was also inflicted anciently on brewers and bakers who transgressed the laws. In the 'Regiam Majestatem,' by Sir John Skene, this punishment is said to have been anciently used in Scotland. Speaking of browsters, that is, 'wemen quha brews aill to be sauld,' it is said, 'gif she makes gude ail, that is sufficient; but gif she makes evill ail, contrair to the use and consuetude of the burgh, and his convict thereof, she sall pay ane unlaw of aucht shillinges, or sal suffer the justice of the burgh, that is, she sall be put upon the cuck-stule, and the ail sall be distributed to the pure folke.'
Borlasse, in his 'Natural History of Cornwall, tells us that 'among the punishments inflicted in Cornwall of old time, was that of the cucking-stool, a seat of infamy, where scolds were condemned to abide the derision of those that passed by, for such time as the baliffs of manors, which had the privilege of such jurisdiction, did appoint.'
Mr. Lysons, in his 'Environs of London,' mentions, that at a court of the manor of Edgeware, held in the year 1552, the inhabitants were presented for not having a tumbrel, and a ducking-stool, by which it would appear that there was some difference between them; and the following extract from Cowel's 'Interpreter,' is in confirmation of the difference:- 'Georgius Grey, comes Cantii clamat in maner de Bushton et Ayton punire delinquentes contra assisam paniset cervisiae, per tres vices per amerciamenta, et quarta vice pistores per pilloriam, braciatores per tumbrellam et rixatrices, per thewe, hoc est ponere eas super scabellum vocat, a cucking-stool. Pl. in Itin. apud Cestr. 14 Hen. VII.'
Mr. Lysons gives a curious extract from the churchwarden's and chamberlain's accounts, at Kingston-upon-Thames, in the year 1572, which contains a bill of the expenses for making one of these ducking-stools, amounting to twenty-three shillings and fourpence; and as entries of this kind are frequent, it would appear that they must have been much in use formerly. Even when Gay wrote his 'Pastorals,' it would appear that they were not uncommon, and are thus described in the 'Dumps:'
'I'll speed me to the pond, where the high stool
On the long plank, hangs o'er the muddy pool,
That stool the dread of ev'ry scolding quean.'
In the 'New Help to Discourse,' published in 1684, there is the following retort on the subject of the ducking-stool:- 'Some gentlemen travelling, and coming near to a town, saw an old woman spinning near the duckingstool; one, to make the company merry, asked the good woman what the chair was for? Said she, "you know what it is." "Indeed," said he, "not I, unless it be a chair you use to spin in." "No, no," said she, "you know it to be otherwise; have you not heard that it is the cradle your good mother hath often layn in?"'
A volume of poems by Benjamin West of Northamptonshire, printed in 1780, contains a copy of verses, said to have been written some years previous, entitled the 'DuckingStool,' in which it is thus noticed:
'There stands, my friend, in yonder pool,
An engine call'd a ducking-stool;
By legal pow'r commanded down,
The joy and terror of the town.
If jarring females kindle strife,
Give language foul, or lug the coif,
If noisy dames should once begin
To drive the house with horrid din,
Away, you cry, you'll grace the stool,
We'll teach you how your tongue to rule.
The fair offender fills the seat,
In sullen pomp, profoundly great.
Down in the deep the stool descends,
But here, at first, we miss our ends;
She mounts again, and rages more
Than ever vixen did before.
So, throwing water on the fire,
Will but make it burn the higher.
If so, my friend, pray let her take
A second turn into the lake;
And, rather than your patience lose,
Thrice and again repeat the dose.
No bawling wives, no furious wenches,
No fire so hot but water quenches.'
A note to this poem informs us, that to the honour of the fair sex in the neighbourhood of R***y, this machine has been taken down as useless several years.
How long the ducking-stool has been in disuse in England does not appear; but that it was not always effectual, is proved from the records of the King's Bench, where we find, that in the year 1681, Mrs. Finch, a most notorious scold, who had been thrice ducked previously, for scolding, was a fourth time convicted for the offence, when the court sentenced her to pay a fine of three marks, and to be imprisoned until it was paid.
In the United States of America, where many English customs, now forgotten in this country, are retained, the ducking-stool is still the punishment inflicted on a common scold, by the law of Baltimore, and some other States of the Union; and in one of the American papers for 1818, there is a mention of one Mary Davis, who had been indicted for the offence, and found guilty by the jury, after a consultation of an hour and a half. She was sentenced to be publicly ducked.
It appears from 'Gardiner's England's Grievance in relation to the Coal Trade,' that in the time of the Commonwealth, the magistrates of Newcastle-upon-Tyne punished drunkards by making them put a tub over their heads, with holes in the sides for the arms to pass through, called the Drunkard's Cloak, and thus walk through the streets of the town.
During the protectorate of Cromwell, a cobbler of New York killed an Indian; but as this man was an eloquent preacher as well as a cobbler, the colonists determined not to lose him; they tried him in the accustomed manner, and he was found guilty; but on the day of execution, they took a poor old weaver who had long been bed-ridden, out of his bed, and hanged him instead of the real offender.
In one of the many plots which were formed against the life and government of Peter the Great, there was among the number of those seized a soldier belonging to his own regiment of guards. Peter being told by the officers, that this man had always behaved extremely well, had a curiosity to see him, and to learn, from his own mouth what had been his inducement to be concerned in a plot against him. To this purpose he dressed himself in plain clothes, that he might not be known by the man, and went to the prison where he was confined. After some conversation, Peter added, I should be glad to hear, friend, what were your reasons for being concerned in an attempt against the emperor, your master, as I am certain he never did you any injury; on the contrary he has a regard for you as a brave soldier, and a man who always did his duty in the field; if you were, therefore, to show the least remorse for what you have done, the emperor, would, I am persuaded, forgive you: but before I interest myself in your behalf, you must tell me by what motives you were induced to join the mutineers, and I say again, that the emperor, who is naturally good and compassionate, will give you your pardon.
'I know nothing of the emperor,' replied the soldier, 'for I never saw him but at a distance; but he caused my father's head to be cut off, some time ago, for being concerned in a former rebellion, and it is the duty of a son to revenge the death of the father, by the death of the person who took away his life. If, then, the emperor is really so good and merciful as you have represented him, advise him, for his own safety, not to pardon me, for were he to restore me to my liberty, the first use I should make of it would be to engage in some new attempt against his life; nor should I ever rest until I had accomplished my design. The securest method, therefore, which he can take, will be to order my head to be struck off immediately, without which his own life is in danger.'
The Czar in vain used all the arguments he could think of, to set before this desperado the folly and injustice of such sentiments. He still persisted in what he had declared, and Peter departed greatly chagrined at the bad success of his visit, and gave orders for the execution of this man with the rest of his accomplices.
Christor Juvenaldes Urfius, in a collection of pieces printed in 1601, gives twenty articles of a kind of journal which he had made of the six last months of the year 1572, and of the siege of Rochelle in 1573. The following is one of them. 'On August 30th, 1572, eight days after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, I supped at the Louvre at Mademoiselle de Fiesque's; the heat had been intense all the day; we went and sat down in a small arbour by the river side, to enjoy the fresh air. On a sudden we heard in the air a horrible sound of tumultuous voices, and of groans mixed with cries of rage and fury; we remained motionless, in the utmost consternation, looking on each other from time to time, without being able to speak. This continued, I believe, almost half an hour; it is certain the king heard it, that he was terrified by it, and that he could not sleep the remainder of the night; that, nevertheless, he did not mention it the next morning, but he was observed to look gloomy, pensive, and wild.' Mr. P. Foix remarks, that if any prodigy deserves credit, it is this being attested by Henry IV. 'This prince,' says D'Aubigne, book i. chap. 6, page 561, 'frequently told, amongst his most intimate friends (and many now living can witness,) that he never mentioned it without still being terrified by it; that eight days after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, he saw a vast number of ravens perch and croak on the pavilion of the Louvre; that the same night Charles IX., after he had been two hours in bed, started up, roused his grooms of the chamber, and sent them out to listen to a great noise of groans in the air, and among others, some furious and threatening voices, the whole resembling what was heard on the night of the massacre; that all these various cries were so striking, so remarkable, and so articulate, that Charles IX., believing that the enemies of the Montmorencies and of their partizans had surprised and attacked them, sent a detachment of his guards to prevent this new massacre.' It is scarcely necessary to add, that the intelligence brought from Paris proved these apprehensions to be groundless; and that the noises heard must have been the fanciful creations of the guilty conscience of the king, countenanced by the vivid remembrance of those around him of the horrors of St. Bartholomew's day.
The most remarkable case that ever occurred of submission to the dreadful penalty of standing mute, now happily repealed, was that of a Mr. Calverly, of a very ancient family in the North of England. Being a man of violent passions, he conceived a jealousy against his wife, which by some unfortunate accident was turned into such a frenzy of rage, that early one morning he murdered her, by splitting her skull with his battle-axe, and forced seven children he had by her, to leap off the battlements of his castle into the moat which surrounded it, where they all stuck fast in the mud, and were suffocated by the slime or the water. The monster then mounted his horse, and galloped towards a farmer's cottage, where one of his children, an infant at the breast, was at nurse. Whilst on the road, he was ruminating in gloomy and horrid satisfaction on his approach to the only victim wanting to the final completion of his jealous revenge; the moon on a sudden darkened, he lost himself in the midst of a thick forest; the thunder of heaven, which now stunned his ears, seemed to roll against him, and summon him to judgment; while the pale lightning appalling his soul, was to his frantic imagination, the fire of hell preparing intolerable punishments and excruciating tortures for millions of ages. In an agony of remorse for the atrocities he had committed, he went and delivered himself up to justice. After having made his peace with heaven for the murder of his wife and children, he now became distressed by the thought of depriving the child so rescued from his dagger, of the estate and dignity of his ancestors; and of leaving it, instead of its due inheritance, poverty and infamy. He reflected, that should he be convicted and suffer, or should he by his own hand anticipate the stroke of justice, his estate must in either case go to the crown. He therefore stood mute upon being arraigned, and submitted to the penalty with the heroic patience of a martyr. His estate was thus preserved for his child, which was a male; and from whom, if we are rightly informed, is lineally descended the present family of Blackett in Yorkshire.
This tragical tale seems to have furnished the fable of the play called the Yorkshire Tragedy, said by some critics to be written by Shakspeare.
It was in a case of a very similar nature that this revolting punishment was for the last time put into execution. The criminal was a master of a ship, charged with piracy, who, to save some landed property to his family, submitted to the penalty of standing mute.
Such were examples of good arising out of this law; but the instances of its operation were more frequently of a very opposite character.
At the Nottingham Assizes in the year 1735, a person who was commonly reputed to have been both deaf and dumb from his infancy, was tried, or rather to be tried, for murder. Two persons, who (as was afterwards found) bore him no great good will, swore positively that they had heard him speak. He was desired to plead guilty or not guilty. A lawyer represented his case most feelingly to the judge. But the law on the subject being supposed to be imperative, he was taken into an adjoining room, and actually pressed to death, continuing, says a register of the times, obstinately dumb to the last.
The Press-yard, Newgate, was so named because it was the place for inflicting the Peine forte et dure.
The warrant for executing a criminal was anciently by precept under the hand and seal of the judge, as it is still practised in the court of the Lord High Steward upon the execution of a peer; though in the Court of Peers in Parliament it is done by writ from the king. Afterwards it was established, that in case of life, the judge may command execution to be done without writ. Now the usage is, for the judge to sign the calendar, or list of all the persons' names, with their separate judgment in the margin, which is left with the sheriff. As for a capital felony, it is written opposite to the person's name, 'Let him be hanged by the neck.' Formerly, in the days of Latin and abbreviation, 'SUS. per coll.;' for 'suspendatur per collum.' And this is the only warrant that the sheriff has for so material an act as taking away the life of another. it is certainly remarkable that in civil cases there should be such a variety of writs of execution to recover a trifling debt, issued in the king's name, and under the seal of the court, without which the sheriff cannot legally stir one step; and yet that the execution of a man, the most important and terrible of any, should depend upon a marginal note.
'At the time I visited Bridewell,' says Mr. Pennant in his 'Account of London,' 'there was not a single male prisoner, but about twenty females. They were confined to a ground floor, and employed in beating hemp. When the door was opened by the keeper, they ran towards it like so many hounds in a kennel, and presented a most moving sight; about twenty young creatures, the eldest not sixteen, many of them with angelic faces, divested of every angelic passion, and featured with impudence, and impertinence, and profligacy, and clothed in the silken tatters of squalid finery. A magisterial -a national opprobrium! What a disadvantageous contrast to the Spinhouse in Amsterdam, where the confined sit under the eye of a matron, spinning or sewing in plain and neat dresses provided by the public; no traces of their former lives appear in their countenances; a thorough reformation seems to have been effected, equally to the interests and honour of the republic.'
In the Isle of Man it was formerly the law, that to take away an ox or a horse was not a felony, but a trespass, because of the difficulty in that little territory of concealing or carrying them off; but to steal a pig or a fowl, which is easily done, was a capital crime, for which the offender was punished with death.
On the entry of the French into Toledo, during the Peninsular war, General Lasalle visited the palace of the Inquisition. The great number of the instruments of torture, especially the instrument to stretch the limbs, the drop baths, which cause a lingering death, excited horror even in the minds of soldiers hardened in the field of battle. One of these instruments, singular in its kind for refined torture, and disgraceful to reason and religion in the choice of its object, deserves a particular description.
In a subterraneous vault, adjoining the secret audience chamber, stood in a recess in the wall, a wooden statue made by the hands of monks, representing the Virgin Mary. A gilded glory beamed round her head, and she held a standard in her right hand. It immediately struck the spectator, notwithstanding the ample folds of the silk garment which fell from the shoulders on both sides, that she wore a breastplate. Upon a closer examination, it appeared that the whole front of the body was covered with extremely sharp nails, and small daggers or blades of knives with the points projecting outwards. The arms and hands had joints, and their motions were directed by machinery placed behind the partition. One of the servants of the Inquisition who was present was ordered by the general to make the machine manoeuvre, as he expressed it. As the statue extended its arms and gradually drew them back, as if she would affectionately embrace and press some one to her heart, the well-filled knapsack of a Polish grenadier supplied for this time the place of the poor victim. The statue pressed it closer and closer; and when, at the command of the general, the director of the machinery made it open its arms and return to its first position, the knapsack was pierced two or three inches deep, and remained hanging upon the nails and daggers of the murderous instrument.
When Mr. Wilcox, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, was minister to the English factory at Lisbon, he sent the following letter to the then Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Gilbert Burnet, dated Lisbon, January 15, 1706, N.S.
'My Lord, - In obedience to your lordship's commands of the 10th ult., I have here sent all that was printed concerning the last auto da fe. I saw the whole process, which was agreeable to what was published by Limborch and others upon that subject. Of the five persons condemned, there were but four burnt, Antonio Tavanes, by an unusual reprieve, being saved after the procession. Heytor Dias and Maria Penteyra were burnt alive, and the other two first strangled. The execution was very cruel. The woman was alive in the flames half an hour, and the man above an hour. The present king and his brothers were seated at a window so near as to be addressed for a considerable time, in very moving terms, by the man as he was burning. But though the favour he begged was only a few more faggots, yet he was not able to obtain it. The fire was recruited as it wasted, to keep him just in the same degree of heat. All his entreaties could not procure him a larger allowance of wood to shorten and despatch him.'
Three German robbers having acquired, by various atrocities, what amounted to a valuable booty, they agreed to divide the spoil, and to retire from so dangerous a vocation. When the day arrived which they had appointed for that purpose, one of them was despatched to a neighhouring town, to purchase provisions for their last carousal. The other two secretly agreed to murder him on his return, that each might come in for half the plunder, instead of one-third. They did so. But the murdered man was a closer calculator than his assassins, for he had previously poisoned part of the provisions, in order that he might appropriate the whole of the spoil to himself. The triumvirate of worthies were found dead together.
Although the English criminal laws are almost unparalleled in severity, yet they are not aggravated by the manner in which they are carried into execution, as was the case in former times, when criminals were treated with barbarous meanness and insult. When Richard Fitzalan, the great Earl of Arundel, was capitally convicted, he was instantly hurried from Westminster Hall, where he was tried, to Tower Hill; his arms and hands were bound; and the king glutted his eyes with the bloody scene. That great peer, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who was confined in the Tower in the last year of Henry VIII, was reduced to beg for sheets. He was to have lost his head, but was saved by the death of the tyrant, on the very day ordered for his execution. He was kept in custody during the next short reign, but was released on the accession of Queen Mary. He mounted his horse, at the age of fourscore, to assist in quelling the insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyat, in 1541. This served to fill the Tower with new subjects for the mean insults of the times. Sir Thomas, and the rest of the prisoners, were brought into the Tower through the traitor's gate. The lieutenant received them one by one, with insults and gross abuse. When Sir Thomas appeared, gallantly dressed, the lieutenant actually collared him: Sir Thomas gave him a fierce and reproachful look, bravely telling him, 'this is no masterie now!'
The 'maiden,' an instrument for beheading criminals in England, seems to have been originally confined in its use, to the limits of the forest of Hardwick, or the eighteen towns and hamlets within its precincts, in the county of York. The time when this instrument first came in use, is unknown; whether Earl Warren, lord of this forest, might have established it among the sanguinary laws then in use against the invaders of the hunting rights, or whether it might not have been introduced after the woollen manufacturers at Halifax began to gain strength, is uncertain. The last is most probable, for the wild country around the town was inhabited by a lawless set, whose depredations on the cloth tenters, might soon stifle the efforts of infant industry.
The custom of beheading by the maiden, which at last received the force of law, seems to have been established for the protection of trade, and the great terror of offenders by speedy execution. The law was, that 'if a felon be taken within the liberty of the forest of Hardwick, with goods stolen out, or within the said precincts, either hand, habend, backberand, or confessioned to the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny, he shall, after three market days, or meeting days, within the town of Halifax, next after such his apprehension and being condemned, be taken to the gibbet, and there have his head cut from his body.'
The offender always had a fair trial; for as soon as he was taken, he was brought to the Lord's Bailiff at Halifax; he was then exposed on the three markets, which were held thrice a week, placed in the stocks with the stolen goods on his back; or if the theft was of the cattle kind, they were placed by him; and this was done both to strike terror into others, and to produce new informations against the culprit. The bailiff then summoned four freeholders of each town within the forest to form a jury. The felon and prosecutors were brought face to face, and the goods, the cow, the horse, or whatsoever was stolen, produced.
If he was found guilty he was remanded to prison, had a week's time allowed for preparation, and then was conveyed to the place of execution, where his head was struck off by this machine.
If the criminal, either after apprehension, or in the way to execution, could escape out of the limits of the forest, the bailiff had no farther power over him; but if he should be caught within the precincts at any time after, he was immediately executed on his former sentence.
The maiden was freely used in the maiden reign of Queen Elizabeth, during which time twenty-five persons suffered by it; and from 1623 to 1625, at least twelve more; after which it was not used.
In the Parliament House at Edinburgh, one of these machines of death is still preserved. It was introduced into Scotland by the Regent Morton, who took a model of it as he passed through Halifax, had one made, and at last suffered by it himself.
The maiden decapitated the body, by means of an axe fixed in the form of a ram for driving piles of wood. If the criminal was condemned for stealing a horse or a cow, the animal was fixed to the string, and on being whipped, disengaged the axe, which fell upon the neck, and thus the beast became the executioner.
The first appearance of gipsies in Germany, is supposed to have been in the commencement of the sixteenth century. In a few years they gained such a number of idle proselytes, that they became troublesome, and even formidable, to most of the states of Europe; hence they were expelled from France in the year 1560, and from Spain in 1591. The government of England had taken the alarm much earlier; for in 1530, they are described in a statute of Henry the Eighth, as 'an outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor feat of merchandize, who have come into this realm, and gone from shire to shire, and place to place, in great companies, and used great, subtle, and crafty means to deceive the people; bearing them in hand, that they by palmistry could tell men's and women's fortunes; and so many times by craft and subtlety have deceived the people of their money, and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies.'
By this statute they are directed to avoid the realm, and not to return on pain of imprisonment, and forfeiture of their goods and chattels; and upon their trials for any felony which they may have committed, they shall not be entitled to a jury de medietate linguae. In the reign of the sanguinary Queen Mary, it was enacted, that if any such persons shall be imported into the kingdom, the importer shall forfeit #40. And if the Egyptians themselves remain one month in the kingdom, or if any person, being fourteen years old, whether natural born subject, or 'stranger, who has been seen or found in the fellowship of such Egyptians, or who hath disguised him or herself like them, shall remain in the same one month, at one or several times; it is felony without benefit of clergy.
Sir Matthew Hale states at one Suffolk Assizes, not less than thirteen persons were executed upon these statutes, a few years before the Restoration; but to the honour of our national humanity, there are no instances more modern than this of carrying these laws into practice; and, at last, the sanguinary act itself was repealed in 1783.
In Scotland, the gipsies enjoyed some share of indulgence; for a writ of Privy Seal, dated 1594, supports John Faw, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt, in the execution of justice on his company and folk, conform to the laws of Egypt, and in punishing certain persons there named, who rebelled against him, left him, robbed him, and refused to return home with him. King James's subjects are commanded to assist in apprehending them, and in assisting Faw and his adherents to return home. There is a similar writ in his favour from Mary Queen of Scots, in 1563; and in the following year, he obtained a pardon for the murder of Nunan Small; so that it appears he had staid long in Scotland. It was from this King of the Gipsies, that this erratic people received in Scotland the name of Faw's gang, which they still retain.
Philip de Comines, in his 'Life of Louis XI.' has not concealed the dreadful cruelties and extortions by which he rendered himself one of the most odious monarchs that ever swayed the sceptre of France. Stronger colours could not be employed than those in which he describes his loathsome dungeons, his iron cages, and chain nets. Claude de Seyssel, another historian, says, 'That about the places where he was, were seen great numbers of people hanging on trees; and the prisons, and other neighbouring houses, full of prisoners, which were often heard, both by day and night, to cry out through the torments they endured; besides those who were secretly cast into the rivers.' The same historian observes, 'That this king carried his absolute power to excess. He caused Tristan, his provost, to take the prisoners who were in the palace gaol, and drown them near the Grange aux Mercier.' Mezaria, another historian, relates, 'That he had put to death above four thousand, by different punishments, which he sometimes delighted to see. Most of them had been executed without form of law; several drowned with a stone tied to their necks; others precipitated, going over a swipe, from whence they fell upon wheels, armed with spikes and cutting instruments; others were strangled in dungeons: Tristan, his companion and provost of his palace, being at once judge, witness, and executioner.'
It is a remarkable fact, that the Bishop of Verdun, who assisted Louis in the invention of his iron cages, was himself put into the first that was made, and confined to it for fourteen days; and that the king himself, not long before his death, was obliged to make himself a close prisoner in one of his strongest castles, from a dread of that thirst for vengeance with which his cruel conduct had inspired, not only his nobles and subjects, but the very members of his own family.
The reward of forty pounds on conviction for felony, though originally intended to promote vigilance in the officers of justice, has been frequently perverted to the most diabolical purposes. Individuals have not only been seduced to commit crimes, in order that the informer might obtain the price of blood; but the criminal records of this country afford many melancholy instances in which innocent men have been convicted on the perjured evidence of conspirators.
Blood money and its perversions, are not, however, of modern date; they seem to have been well understood as long ago as the reign of Edward the Third, when the appeal of murder was made a source of profit. The preamble to a statute enacted in the reign of that monarch, states, that 'to eschew the damage and destruction that often doth happen by sheriffs, jailors, and keepers of prisons, within franchises and without, which have pained their prisoners, and by such evil means compel and procure them to become appellors, and to appeal harmless and guiltless people, to the intent to have ransom of such appealed persons, for fear of imprisonment or other cause; the justices of either bench, and justices of assize and gaol delivery, shall, by force of this statute, enquire of such compulsions, punishments, and torments, and hear the complaints of all them that will complain by bill.'
Monsieur de Cinqmars, the favourite of Louis XIII., had, with his majesty's secret approbation, endeavoured to destroy Richelieu, and failed. The king was glad to appease the cardinal by sacrificing his friend, whom he used to call cher ami. When the hour of execution arrived, Louis pulled out his watch, and with a villainous smile, said, 'je crois qu'a cette heure cher ami fait un vilaine mine.' Voltaire, commending him, says that this king's character is not sufficiently known. It was not, indeed, while such an anecdote remained unstained with the blackest colours of history.
When the English court interfered in favour of the Protestant subjects of Louis XIV. of France, and requested his majesty to release some who had been sent to the galleys, the king asked him angrily, 'What would the King of Great Britain say, were I to demand the prisoners of Newgate from him?' 'Sire,' replied the ambassador, 'my master would give every one of them up to your majesty, if you reclaimed them as brothers, as we do your suffering Protestant subjects.'
Capital punishments are very rare in Holland: between the years 1799 and 1806, only nine persons were executed. But notwithstanding the horror with which the Dutch justly regard the sanguinary code of England, yet the torture was not abolished in Holland until the year 1796. The treatment of prisoners before trial is peculiarly severe; they are confined in the damp subterranean dungeons of the stadthouse, cut off from light and air, and never suffered to quit these gloomy abodes from the first moment of their commitment, until they appear before their judges in the adjoining hall, where they undergo private examinations, and at length a close trial. The prisoners are not loaded with irons; in order to escape, indeed, they must heave up the stadthouse, and therefore it may well be thought that such an aggravation of punishment would be unnecessary. They are allowed counsel on trial, but strangers are strictly excluded.
The workhouse at Amsterdam is devoted to correctional, as well as charitable purposes. In one part of the building there were confined in 1807, ten young ladies, of very respectable, and some very high, families, sent there by their parents or friends for undutiful deportment, or some other domestic offence; they are compelled to wear a particular dress, as a mark of degradation; obliged to work a stated number of hours a day, and are occasionally whipped; they are kept apart by themselves, and no one but a father, mother, brother, or sister, can see them during their confinement, and then only by an order from one of the directors. Husbands may here, upon a complaint of extravagance, drunkenness, &c., duly proved, send their wives to be confined, and receive the discipline of the house, for two, three, and four years together. The allowance of food is abundant and good; and each person is permitted to walk for a proper time in the courts within the building which are spacious. Every ward is kept locked, and no one can go in or out, without the special permission of the proper officer.
The fatal duel between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun, is well known. Macartney, the second to Lord Mohun, was suspected of having stabbed the duke treacherously; a reward was offered for apprehending him. About that time, a gentleman was set upon by highwaymen, and with a happy presence of mind, told them that he was Macartney. On this they brought him to a justice of peace, in hopes of the reward, when he gave charge against them for the robbery, and they were sent to jail.
In the early settlement of Virginia, when the adventurers were principally unmarried men, it was deemed necessary to export such women as could be prevailed upon to quit England, as wives for the planters. A letter accompanying a shipment of these matrimonial exiles, dated London, August 12 1621, is illustrative of the manners of the times, and the concern then felt for the welfare of the colony, and for female virtue. It is as follows :
'We send you in the ship, one widow and eleven maids, for wives for the people of Virginia; there hath been especial care had in the choice of them, for there hath not one of them been received but upon good commendations.
'Incase they cannot be presently married, we desire that they may be put with several householders that have wives, till they can be provided with husbands. There are nearly fifty more that are shortly to come, and are sent by our Hon. Lord and Treasurer, the Earl of Southampton, and certain worthy gentlemen, who taking into their consideration that the plantation can never flourish till families be planted, and the respect of wives and children for their people on the soil, therefore have given this fair beginning; for the reimbursing of whose charges, it is ordered that every man that marries them, give one hundred and twenty pounds of best leaf tobacco for each of them.
'Though we are desirous that the marriage be free, according to the laws of nature ' yet we would not have those maids deceived, and married to servants; but only to such freemen or tenants as have means to maintain them. We pray you, therefore, to be fathers of them in this business, not enforcing them to marry against their wills.'
The observation of Dryden, that
'With sure steps, though lame and slow,
Vengeance o'ertakes the villain's speed,'
has seldom met a stronger confirmation than in the conviction and execution of William Andrew Horne, at Nottingham, in 1759, for a murder committed thirty-five years before. The discovery of the crime was rather singular. Horne having threatened one Mr. Roe for killing game, and meeting him soon after at a public-house, words arose about the right to kill game; Roe called Horne some names which subjected him to a prosecution in the Ecclesiastical Court at Litchfield, and being unable to prove the charge, was obliged to submit, and pay all expenses. Roe being afterwards informed that Charles Horne had mentioned to some persons that his brother William had starved his natural child to death, went to them, and found it was true. Upon this, he applied, about Christmas 1758, to a justice in Derbyshire, for a warrant to apprehend Charles, that the truth might come out. William Horne was then arrested, and took his trial for the murder of the child, in August, 1759, at Nottingham; when, after a trial which lasted nine hours, he was found guilty.
During the wars in Flanders, in the reign of Queen Anne, when the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene commanded the allied army, a soldier, in the division of the latter, was condemned to be hanged for marauding. The man happened to be a favourite with his officers, who took great pains to save his life, and for this purpose interceded with the prince, who positively refused to grant their request. They then applied to the Duke of Marlborough, begging his Grace to interfere; he accordingly went to Prince Eugene, who said, 'he never did, and never would, consent to the pardon of a marauder.' 'Why,' said the duke, 'at this rate, we shall hang half the army; I pardon a great many.' 'That,' replied the prince, 'is the reason that so much mischief is done by your people, and that so many suffer for it; I never pardon any, and therefore there are very few to be punished in my department.' The duke still urged his request; on which the prince said, 'Let the matter be enquired into, and if your Grace has not executed more than I have done, I will consent to the pardon of this fellow.' The proper enquiries were accordingly made, and the numbers turned out very highly in favour of Prince Eugene; on which he said to the duke. 'There, my lord, you see the benefit of example. You pardon many, and therefore you are forced to execute many; I never pardon one, therefore few dare to offend, and of course but few suffer.'
This is one among the many confirmations which might be adduced of the truth of Beccaria's remark, that 'a less punishment, which is certain, will do more good than a greater, which is uncertain.'
Some years ago, an attempt, was supposed to have been made to rob a house in Paris during the night; the family was disturbed, and if there had been any robbers, they were scared from their purpose. The master of the house, in relating the circumstance, said that he thought his house had 'been attacked par des rossignols,' an expression Anglois; which sufficiently shows that the frequency of burglaries in this country, has become, in a manner, proverbial on the Continent.
Murderers Discovered by Two Dogs.
A labouring man of Tobolski, who had deposited in a purse skin which he wore at his breast, the hard-earned savings of his life, was murdered by two of his companions, for the sake of his little treasure. The murderers escaped to a neighbouring forest, followed by two dogs belonging to the deceased, which would not quit them. The wretches did everything to appease them, but in vain. They then endeavoured to kill them, but the dogs were upon their guard, and continued to howl dreadfully. Reduced to despair, the murderers, at the end of two days, returned to Krasnojarsk, and delivered themselves into the hands of justice.
On the 30th of May, 1791, Robespierre spoke in the National Assembly in favour of abolishing the punishment of death; and yet there hardly ever was an individual who showed less regard for human life, or shed blood with such indiscriminate profusion.
The celebrated Jean Lambert Tallien, had formed a tender friendship with the beautiful Madame Cabarus, so celebrated in revolutionary history; but at the period in question, mutual jealousy had interrupted their attachment. She was thrown into a dungeon by order of Robespierre; and when it was conceived she had been sufficiently terrified by imprisonment, and the prospect of the guillotine, she was offered life and liberty if she would betray the councils of Tallien, and enable his enemies to ruin him. Although her lover had been faithless, and had deserted her, she refused the offer with indignation; and, with great difficulty, had the following letter conveyed to him:
'The Minister of Police has announced to me, that tomorrow I am to appear at the tribunal; that is to say, I am to ascend the scaffold. I dreamt last night that Robespierre was no more, and that my prison doors were opened. A brave man might have realized my dream; but, thanks to your notorious cowardice, no one remains who is capable of its accomplishment.'
Tallien answered merely, 'Be prudent as I shall prove brave; and, above all, be tranquil.'
The next day he hurried to the tribunal, and, regardless of danger, accused the miscreant Robespierre in his own presence. The eloquence of Tallien had always been commanding and impressive; but on this occasion, it was compared to the impetuous flowing of a river, whose course had been prematurely stopped. He portrayed the vices of Robespierre and his companions; the cruelty, and the other excesses of their government, which had deprived France of her most illustrious citizens. Then, taking a dagger from his bosom, he rushed towards the statue of Brutus, his own immortal prototype, and swore, that he himself would stab the tyrant to the heart, if his countrymen did not deliver themselves from their disgraceful bondage. His language, his action, and his animated eye, were irresistible; for they recalled the Roman hero to the minds of all the auditors. Robespierre was astounded, and attempted to defend himself. The moment was critical; the life of Tallien hung upon a thread; but his eloquence prevailed, and the tribunal regained its lost character. The tyrant was sent to the scaffold; Madame Cabarus and other intended victims were saved, and the reign of terror was abolished.
A judge of the name of Helmanotz, in the department of Zips, sent a young female peasant with a sum of money to Goelnitz, a small town situated among the mountains. Not far from the village a countryman joined her, and demanded where she was going? The girl replied, that she was journeying with a sum of 200 florins to Goelnitz. The countryman told her that he was going there also, and proposed that they should travel together. At the wood, the countryman pursued a path which he had told the girl would shorten their journey at least two leagues. At length they arrived at the mouth of an excavation, which had once been worked as a mine; the countryman stopped short, and in a loud voice said to the girl, 'behold your grave; deliver me the money instantly.' The girl, trembling with fear, complied with his demand, and then entreated him to spare her life; the villain was inflexible, and he commanded her to prepare herself for death; the poor girl fell on her knees, and while in the act of supplicating for life, the villain happened to turn away his head, when she sprang upon him, precipitated him into the cavity, and then ran and announced to the village what had happened. Several of the inhabitants, provided with ladders, returned with her to the spot. They descended into the hole, and found the countryman dead, with the money which he had taken from the girl in his possession. Near him lay three dead female bodies in a state of putrefaction. It is probable that these were victims to the rapacity of the same villain. In a girdle which he had round his body, was discovered a sum of 800 florins in gold.
The Turks, says Mr. Turner, one of the most recent travellers in the East, allow that their emperor may kill every day, fourteen of his subjects with impunity, and without impeachment of tyranny, because, say they, he does many things by divine impulse, the reason of which it is not permitted to them to know. I have been told that a Pasha of three tails is authorized by law to cut off five heads a day; a Pasha of two tails, three; and a Pasha of one tail, one.
A Mollah (judge) of Jerusalem being disturbed at night by dogs, ordered all those animals in Jerusalem and its environs to be killed, and thus excited a mutiny among the people, who are forbidden by the Koran to kill any beast unless it be hurtful, or necessary for the nourishment of man. Having, however, by the authority of the Mufti, his father, succeeded in obtaining obedience to his orders, he was emboldened to issue another still more capricious. The flies being very troublesome to him during the heat of summer, he ordered that every artizan should bring him every day forty of these insects on a string, under a pain of severe fine; and he caused this ridiculous sentence to be severely enforced.
When a Grand Vizier is favourably deposed (i.e. without banishing him or putting him to death), it is signified to him by a chiaoux from the Sultan, who goes to his table and wipes the ink out of his golden pen; this he understands as the sign of his dismissal; if his fate be more severe, he receives an order from the Sultan to await his sentence in a small kiosk (summer house) just outside the walls of the Seraglio, where he sits sometimes four or six hours, before the messenger comes to tell him whether he is to be banished or put to death.
Hussein Capitan Pasha (the famous one who fought at Chesme), when in the bay of Smyrna once, with his fleet, seeing one of his ships run foul of another, ordered the captain on board, and beheaded him immediately.
The same Hussein had a Jew physician called in one day to relieve him from an aching tooth; the clumsy fellow unfortunately drew the wrong one, but as the agony of extraction drowned the pain for a time, he got away undetected; the pain soon returned, and a few days after Hussein meeting the man on the Bosphorus, stopped him. and had every tooth in his head drawn.
The Turks lately punished a pirate by flaying him alive; they began at the head, and when they came to the breast, the man died with agony.
A Turk was lately beheaded at Buyukdereh (by order of the Grand Vizier. who was walking about in disguise), for having sold for twenty four paras, a quantity of chestnuts, of which the price was fixed at twelve paras.
The modern laws of Cos do not reward female chastity, but they discountenance in a very singular manner, any cruelty in females towards their admirers. While Dr. Clarke was in that island, an instance occurred, in which the fatal termination of a love affair occasioned a trial for what the Mohammedan lawyers called 'homicide by an intermediate cause.' The case was as follows:
A young man desperately in love with a girl of Stanchio, eagerly sought to marry her; but to his disappointment, his proposals were rejected. In consequence he bought some poison and destroyed himself. The Turkish police instantly arrested the father of the young woman, as the cause, by implication, of the man's death: under the fifth species of homicide, he became therefore amenable for this act of suicide. When the cause came before the magistrate, it was urged literally by the accusers, that 'if he, the accused, had not had a daughter, the deceased would not have fallen in love; consequently he would not have been disappointed; consequently he would not have swallowed poison; consequently he would not have died; but he, the accused, had a daughter, and the deceased had fallen in love, and had been disappointed; and had swallowed poison, and had died.' Upon all these counts, he was called upon to pay the price of the young man's life; and this being fixed at the sum of eighty piastres, it was accordingly exacted!
If any one among the Cucis, or Mountaineers of Tibra, puts another to death, the chief of the tribe, or other persons who bear no relation to the deceased, have no concern in punishing the murderer; but if the murdered person have brother, or other heir, he may take blood for blood; nor has any man whatever a right to prevent or oppose such retaliation.
When a man is detected in the commission of theft, or any other atrocious offence, the chieftain causes a recompense to be given to the complainant, and reconciles both parties; but the chief himself receives a customary fine, and each party gives a feast of pork, or other meat, to the people of his respective tribe.
The laws of the Ashantees are very severe. To be convicted of cowardice, is punished with death. In almost all cases of treason, the life of the accuser is at risk, as well as accused, and is forfeited on the acquittal of the latter. Those accused of witchcraft, or of being possessed with a devil, are tortured to death. A person accidentally killing another, pays five ounces of gold to the family, and defrays the burial customs. In the case of murder, it is twenty ounces of gold and a slave, or he and his family become the slaves of the family deceased.
No man is punished for killing his own slave but he is for the murder of his wife and child. If he kills the slave of another, he must pay his value. If a great man kills his equal in rank, he is general allowed to die by his own hands: the death of an inferior is generally compensated by a fine to the family, equal to seven slaves.
A captain is allowed to put his wife to death for infidelity; but instead of this, it is expected that he will accept a liberal offer of gold from the family, for her redemption.
Trifling thefts are generally punished by the exposure of the party in various parts of the town, whilst the act is published; but more serious thefts cannot be visited on the guilty by any but his family, who are bound to compensate the accuser, and punish their relative or not, as they think fit; they may even put him or her to death, if the injury is serious, or the crime repeated or habitual.
If any subject picks up gold dropped in the market-place, it is death, being collected only by order of the government on emergencies.
It is forbidden, as it was by Lycurgus, to praise the beauty of another man's wife, this being considered intrigue by implication.
M. de la Place relates in his memoirs, that as he once entered Brussels, he saw an immense crowd preceding and following the officers of justice, who were conducting a female culprit to the place of execution. She was a young woman of remarkably fine person, and whose features were so peculiarly interesting, that even the horrors of her situation could not destroy their effect. Her appearance was rendered peculiar by her dress, which consisted of a jacket and pantaloons of white satin. He eagerly inquired the nature of her crime, and why she had chosen so unusual a dress in which to undergo her sentence, when an officer of justice said to him, 'I can fully satisfy you on these points, as I attended her trial before the ordinary tribunal, the sentence of which was yesterday confirmed by the supreme council of Brabant. When arraigned, she addressed herself to the judge, and said. "My lord, in order to shorten proceedings, the length of which would be more painful to me than death itself, I entreat you to listen to my story. I shall conceal nothing but the circumstances of my birth and family, which no earthly torture shall induce me to reveal. I was scarcely more than sixteen years old, when I fell a victim to an almost unexampled plan of base and deliberate seduction, which led me in the issue to Paris, where I was reduced to extremities that exposed me to the arts of those wretches who prey upon the miseries of my sex. After every gradation of a vile and hateful course of life, the scenes of which may be imagined, but which it would rack me to death to describe, I was reduced to the last extremity of wretchedness. At that moment I was relieved by a man of the lower order, it is true; but it was one whom, from gratitude and feeling, I found that I could sincerely love. A fortunate lottery ticket produced me ten thousand livres, and enabled me to return the obligations I had been laid under. Our love was mutual; we resolved to live for each other alone; we resolved to be united by the sacred obligations of marriage; and mutually vowed that the first act of infidelity should be punished by the forfeiture of the life of the guilty party. I can safely affirm, my lord, that from that moment the observance of this duty became a pleasure to me, and that the deceased himself would have done ample justice to me in this particular, had he lived. Each happy in a state of life that set us above want, our situation was really enviable, when the unfortunate death of the Prince of Conti, whom my husband served as coachman, deprived us of more than half our little income. Soon after this, the Count, with whom he had lived previous to his engagement with the deceased prince, promised to exert himself to procure a similar situation for him under Prince Charles of Lorraine, governor-general of the Austrian Netherlands. With this encouragement, we set out for Brussels, where I made use of our remaining money to establish myself in a little way of business, till the promised recommendation in our favour should take effect. But idleness, that root of all evil, and the want of proper occupation, having led my husband among the disorderly houses in the suburbs, the report of an act of his infidelity soon reached me, and produced such an effect that my life was thought to be in danger. But he appeared to be so sincerely affected by his misconduct, that after having brought the terms of our agreement to his recollection, I suffered myself to be appeased, but with a solemn threat that I would not forgive his next infidelity, should he offend again. Alas! he deceived me again; and I overlooked his second aggravation, for still I loved him ardently. But finding shortly after that he not only continued his irregularities, but that after stripping me of the only money I had remaining, and dispossessing me of the few trinkets I possessed, had concerted a plan to set out, in the dead of the night, for Paris, with my rival, my rage burst its bounds; that night, that fatal night, my hand was unfortunately directed to a sword which he always kept in his bed-chamber. I stabbed him, mortally stabbed him, with it while he slept. I did not fly, though, as I had at least four hours before me, I might have been far from Brussels, and have saved myself before my crime was discovered; but at the sight of his blood - of that blood which a few weeks before I would have given my own to have preserved, I was so overcome, that I fainted on the spot. I recovered in about two hours after, just in time to see my murdered husband expire in my arms, and with his dying looks, for speak he could not, forgive me; I seized the reeking instrument of my revenge, and was about to plunge it in my own bosom. No, cried I, such an act would be too mild a punishment for me, the severest sufferings can scarcely atone for such guilt. I left not the body for a single instant, till the officers of justice appeared to arrest me; and all that I now seek, is to have that execution hastened, which alone can expiate my crime." Never was I so deeply affected,' said the officer to M. de la Place, 'as by the calm and solemn dignity of manner with which this address was delivered; and being desirous to know if her courage would equally uphold her in the presence of the supreme tribunal, I attended there likewise, and found her alike firm and undaunted, till the announcement of her sentence, which was, that she should be broken alive on the wheel. "The wheel!" said she with a piercing shriek, that penetrated my very soul: "do you forget that I am a woman?" Such, she was told, was the law in a case like hers. "Ah!" said she, in a voice half broken with sobs, "had I known this sooner" - but recovering herself immediately after, "Forgive me, gentlemen," said she, "for this transport; there is no degree of suffering or humiliation but I am prepared to undergo. Only allow me, and I shall be resigned to my fate - only allow me to appear upon the scaffold with that decent degree of covering which may screen my naked limbs."
'Her request was granted; and returning thanks to her judges, she was reconducted to prison. The dress was then prepared for her; that dress in which you have just seen her proceeding to execution.'
A noble lady of Florence, who resided in a house which still stands opposite the lofty Doric column which was raised to commemorate the defeat of Pietro Strozzi, and the taking of Sienna, by the tyrannic conqueror of both, Cosmo the First, lost a valuable pearl necklace, and one of her waiting-women (a very young girl) was accused of the theft. Having solemnly denied the fact, she was put to torture, which was then given a plaisir at Florence. Unable to support its terrible infliction, she acknowledged that 'she was guilty,' and without further trial was hung. Shortly after, Florence was visited by a tremendous storm; a thunderbolt fell on the figure of Justice, and split the scales, one of which fell to the earth, and with it fell the ruins of a magpie's nest, containing the pearl necklace! Those scales are still the haunt of birds.
Although the law's delay is often complained of in civil cases, yet in criminal ones it is speedy enough. An instance of summary punishment occurred at Derby, in 1814. A man was detected picking a gentleman's pocket of his pocket-book. He was taken into custody, the property found upon him, carried before a justice, committed, a bill found by the Grand jury, which was then sitting; he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to transportation; and all this was done in the course of two hours.
'Her streets in blood deplore
The seven brave hunters murdered by the Moor.'
During a truce with the Moors, six Spanish cavaliers of the Order of St. James were, while on a hunting party, surrounded and killed by a numerous body of the Moors. During the fight, in which the gentlemen sold their lives dear, a common carter, named Garcias Rodrigo, who chanced to pass that way, came generously to their assistance, and lost his life along with them. The poet, in giving all seven the same title, shows us that virtue constitutes true nobility. Don Payo de Correa, Grand Master of the Order of St. James, revenged the death of these brave unfortunates, by the sack of Tavila, where his just rage put the garrison to the sword.
The assassin who murdered General Kleber, was a Turkish peasant, of the name of Solyman Illepy, who had secreted himself in Kleber's garden at Cairo. Kleber having put his sword and hat down in General Damas's breakfast-room, walked out in his own garden with the architect Protain, in order to survey some alterations making at his house. Having passed a well adjoining the walk, the peasant jumped out, and before Kleber could at all defend himself, plunged a stiletto into his body in five different places. The first wound was mortal, and Kleber fell without uttering a word. The architect had a small rod or rule in his hand, trusting to which for his defence, he made a gallant but vain attempt to secure the assassin, and received himself no less than nine wounds with the same stiletto; fortunately none of them proved mortal. The assassin left the spot, and went amongst the trees, where he was taken in about a quarter of an hour afterwards, by one of Kleber's guide guards, from whom he received a sabre wound on the left arm, on his making resistance. The stiletto he had buried in the ground close by him, where it was found by one of Damas's aides-de-camp. 'This instrument,' says Captain (now Commissioner) Sir Charles Boyle, 'I saw; it was about sixteen or eighteen inches long. The garden wall was surrounded by the guide guards, immediately on the report of Kleber's assassination, to prevent the escape of this man, which, however, appeared to me useless, as I am convinced, from what I saw, it was not his wish to save his own life, for he had jumped a declivity of about eight feet, which was close to the spot where he committed the act, and had crossed the place Esbiquiez. Among the many Turks constantly there, he might have passed unnoticed, and have got into any mosque he had wished in the city, where his person would have been secure.'
The assassin suffered death, by having the flesh burned off his right hand, and by being impaled, in which situation he lived one hour and forty minutes; dying without showing any fear, and declaring to the last, 'That the act which he had done was meritorious, and one for which he should be made happy in the other world.' He continued exclaiming, from the moment of his hand being burnt, to that of his death, Tay hip, or That's good!
Three Sheiks of the church, whom Illeppy had made acquainted with his intention, by praying with them for success, had their heads taken off, and stuck on spikes round the pale on which the assassin was executed; their bodies were afterwards burnt. Two other Sheiks who were concerned, made their escape.
The necessity of a just and well administered system of laws to the progress of civilization among a people, was never more strongly exemplified than in the instance of the island of Corsica. Blessed with a most genial climate, situated most favourably for commerce with all parts of the world, and politically attached to one of the most polished nations in Europe, Corsica is nevertheless without trade, without letters, and without refinement.
This phenomenon, truly extraordinary in the nineteenth century, is owing entirely to intestine divisions, and to hereditary feuds, which have from time immemorial desolated this island. And whence have these arisen? From the impunity given in this country to crimes, and to the absence of everything like justice. So familiar had the Corsicans become to homicide, that according to a report made in 1715, the assassinations committed in that island, amounted during the thirty two preceding years, to the enormous number of twenty thousand, seven hundred and fifteen. During the revolt against the Genoese, Generals Ceccaldri and Graffieri caused two murderers of distinction to be executed, though they offered thirty thousand francs each to be spared. This salutary example had such an effect, that for three years afterwards, not a single homicide was heard of.
A Frenchman being arraigned for a capital crime in 1821, pleaded in his defence, that having been born at the commencement of the revolution, he had imbibed all its pernicious principles, and had never been able to discriminate between good and evil. The court disregarded the plea; the man was convicted, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment.
Some years ago, the captain of a French ship, then lying at Alexandria, went on shore in his own boat, and proceeded towards the French Caravansera. Meanwhile the boat's crew sauntered about the beach, when a Turk suddenly seized one of them, and cried out; on which several Turks came up, and were hurrying the French sailor away. The captain alarmed at the uproar, turned back, and with his boat's crew followed the man, who was taken to the Cadi, or Turkish judge; but as neither the captain nor his men could understand the Turks, nor the Turks them, the French interpreter was sent for, who, when he had heard the matter, told the captain that the sailor whom the Turks had seized, had cursed Mahomet. The captain and his men were greatly astonished to hear this, as the man accused was born dumb, and had remained so ever since. The interpreter informed the judge of this, who paused some time, then turning to the French interpreter, said, 'I believe the man accused was born dumb, and has remained so ever since.' Afterwards, turning to the Turkish accuser, he said, ' I have no doubt but that this Christian has blasphemed Mahomet.' On hearing this, the French interpreter (a man much esteemed, both by Christians and Turks) begged the judge to hear him a few moments, which being granted, he told the judge that it was impossible what both parties said could be true. 'Not in the least,' replied the judge very calmly, 'for though I firmly believe, through the undoubted proofs given me, that the sailor was actually born dumb, and has remained so ever since, till he came on shore here, yet you must know, the devil has such a hatred to our most holy faith, that he gave him the power of speech for an instant, to curse our most holy prophet; therefore,' continues the judge, 'though I pity the prisoner, yet I cannot, without giving a bad example, let him go unpunished; and in compassion to his circumstances, he shall pay no more than fifty Venetian sequins.' The captain was accordingly obliged to pay the money, to save an honest man and a good mariner.
At the York Assizes, in 1803, the clerk to a mercantile house in Leeds was tried on a charge of forgery, found guilty, and condemned to death. His family in Halifax was very respectable, and his father, in particular, bore an excellent character. Immediately after the sentence was passed upon the unfortunate young man, a dissenting minister of the Baptist persuasion, who had long been intimate with the father, presumed to address his majesty in a most moving petition, soliciting the pardon of the son of his friend. Fully aware that it had been almost an invariable rule with the government to grant no pardons in cases of forgery, he had little hopes of success; but, contrary to his expectations, his petition prevailed, and the reprieve was granted. That the solicitation of a private individual should have succeeded, when similar applications, urged by numbers, and supported by great interest, have uniformly failed, may excite surprise, and deserves particular observation. The following circumstances, the veracity of which may be depended upon, fully explain the singularity of the fact. In the year 1802 a dignified divine, preaching before the royal family, happened to quote a passage illustrative of his subject from a living author, whose name he did not mention. The king, who was always remarkably attentive, was struck with the quotation, and immediately noted the passage for an inquiry. At the conclusion of the service, he asked the preacher from whom that extract had been taken; and being informed that the author was a dissenting minister in Yorkshire, he expressed a wish to have a copy of the original discourse. The royal mandate was accordingly imparted to the author, who lost no time in complying with it, accompanying the work with a very modest letter, expressive of the high sense he entertained of the honour conferred upon him. His majesty was so well pleased with the production, as to signify his readiness to serve the author. The case of the above young man soon after afforded this amiable and disinterested minister an opportunity of supplicating, at the hands of the monarch, the exercise of his prerogative of mercy, in favour of the son of his friend, as the greatest favour his majesty could confer.
'Among the children,' says that active philanthropist, the Hon. Grey Bennet, in his evidence before the Police Committee, 'whom I have seen in prison, a boy of the name of Leary was the most remarkable; he was about thirteen years of age, good-looking, sharp, and intelligent, and possessing a manner which seemed to indicate a character very different from that he really possessed. When I saw him, he was under sentence of death for stealing a watch, chain, and seals, from Mr. Princep's chambers in the Temple; he had been five years in the practice of delinquency, progressively from stealing an apple off a stall, to housebreaking and highway robbery. He belonged to the Moorfields Catholic School, and there became acquainted with one Ryan in that school, by whom he was instructed in the various arts and practices of delinquency; his first attempts were at tarts, apples, &c.; next at loaves in bakers' baskets; then parcels of halfpence on shop counters, and money-tills in shops; then to breaking shop windows, and drawing out valuable articles through the aperture, picking pockets, housebreaking, &c. Leary has often gone to school the next day with several pounds in his pockets, as his share of the produce of the previous day's robberies; he soon became captain of a gang, generally since known as Leary's gang, with five boys, and sometimes more, furnished with pistols, taking a horse and cart with them; and if they had an opportunity in their road, they cut off the trunks of gentlemen's carriages, when, after opening them, and according to their contents, so would they be governed in prosecuting their further objects in that quarter; they would then divide into parties of two, sometimes only one, and leaving one with the horse and cart, go to farm and other houses, stating their being on the way to see their families, and begging for some bread and water; by such tales, united with their youth, they obtained relief, and generally ended by robbing the house or premises. In one instance Leary was detected and taken, and committed to Maidstone gaol; but, the prosecutor not appearing against him, he was discharged. In these excursions he stayed about a week and Upwards, when his share has produced him from #50 to £100. He has been concerned in various robberies in London and its vicinity, and has had property at one time amounting to £350; but when he had money, he either got robbed of it by elder thieves, who knew he had so much about him, or he lost it by gambling at flash-houses, or spent it amongst loose characters of both sexes. After committing innumerable depredations, he was detected at Mr. Derrimore's, at Kentish Town, stealing some plate from that gentleman's dining-room; when, several other similar robberies coming against him in that neighbourhood, he was, in compassion to his youth, placed in the Philanthropic Asylum; but being now charged with Mr. Princep's robbery, he was taken, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, but was afterwards respited, and returned to that institution. He is little, and well-looking; has robbed to the amount Of £3000 during his five years' career. This surprising boy has since broke out and escaped from the Philanthropic, went to his old practices, was again tried at the Old Bailey, and is transported for life.
Sentiments of Bonaparte on Suicide.
A grenadier of the French consular guard, having experienced a slight from a young woman to whom he was attached, he determined on the destruction of his life, and soon carried it into execution, by shooting himself. Bonaparte, who was then first consul, upon hearing of the transaction, directed the publication of the following paper, for the future prevention of such a cowardly practice amongst the troops.
'A soldier ought to know how to overcome grief and melancholy arising from passion; there is as much true fortitude in suffering mental pain with firmness, as in remaining firm before the grape shot of a battery. For a soldier to abandon himself to sorrow without any resistance, to kill himself in order to avoid it, is to abandon the field of battle without having conquered.'
A few years ago the green of a rich bleacher in the North of Ireland had been frequently robbed at night to a very considerable amount, notwithstanding the utmost vigilance of the proprietor and his servants to protect it, and without the slightest clue being furnished for the detection of the robber.
Effectually and re