CHAPTER X.

ANCIENT PUNISHMENTS.

In the broader sense, punishment includes any pain or detriment suffered in consequence of wrong-doing, but as treated of in this chapter, it means the pain or other penalty imposed by an authority to which the offender is subject, for a crime or offense committed.

The term punishment is properly restricted to the penalties imposed by competent authority, for violations of law; but as the subject of the following pages will bear evidence, it has been frequently imposed upon the weak and the innocent, as well as upon the guilty, and instead of being always confined to the authority acting only in pursuance of the fixed rules of law, it has too often resulted from the arbitrary will of someone in superior authority.

“Man’s inhumanity to man” seems ever to have been a peculiar trait of the species and human cruelty exceeds that of all other animals, in the same proportion that man excels the lower species. In following the bent of his cruel impulses, man has never rect’ with good or ill, but like a ravenous beast of prey, far fiercer “than the wolf or bear, he slays his kind in cruel glee and sorrows he can slay no more.”

When we read the history of the punishments of antiquity, we can but wonder that the people suffered so long and so continuously as a result of laws which had for their foundation the passions or wickedness of only a small per cent of the people, instead of the beneficent rules of conduct formulated by the “cool examiner of human nature,” familiar with the actions of the multitude and prompted by altruistic motives, to legislate for the greatest happiness of the greater number.

Every just punishment should be limited to the necessity of defending and preserving the liberty of the masses of society from the usurpations and wrongs of individuals, hence, every punishment which does not arise from such necessity is tyranny.[1]

Since the time of Beccaria men have realized that the groans of a tortured wretch cannot recall the time past, or reverse the crime once committed,[2] so punishments are now provided for, not to torment a sensible being, nor to attempt to undo the crime committed, but to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society and to deter others from committing similar offenses. But it was not always thus. Torture, of the worst kind, in the handling of criminals, has been consecrated as a time honored custom by most of the older nations of the world. Mankind, for centuries, seemed to forget that all men were brothers; that a man, after he is dead is good for nothing and since punishments were invented for the good of society, that they ought to be useful and not destructive, still they universally persecuted each other, even to the death.

All mankind have ever detested the violence of which they may themselves possibly be the victim, but the criminal is so far regarded as an enemy to society, that they universally desire the punishment inflicted upon another which they would never want inflicted upon themselves. Viewing all other men as inconsequential in the sum total of the universe, but each individual believing himself the center of the social unit, men have been ever ready to play the tiger and make the alleged criminal the lamb, because it was the other individual whose life was sacrificed.

Viewing the whole plan of society by the standards of the past, in the punishment of criminals, it is difficulty to determine whether the crimes against society or those of society against the alleged criminal, have been the greater. But with the idea of reforming the criminal, the barbarous tortures of the past have been eliminated and the trend of modern criminologists is to further limit all punishments, not in themselves wholly reformatory in their nature.

Excessive punishments have always increased, rather than diminished crime, yet authority to inflict punishment has never been much concerned about the welfare of the race or of society, as a whole, and the humane law of the philosophers has been disregarded far too long to curb the ingenious cruelty that has inflicted penalties and pains upon alleged criminals, frequently wholly innocent of any crime.

The object of this chapter, however, is not to moralize about crimes and punishments, but to contribute something to the vast fund of historical information upon the subject of ancient punishments, with a few illustrations of the pains and penalties inflicted during the past ages, in the name of law, upon the unfortunate victims falling into the vortex of the current of a past civilization and hopelessly borne on to their destruction.

_Capital punishment, by beheading_ was not practiced by the ancient Israelites, but was a custom of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans,[3] and the French. We find that the “chief baker,” who incurred Pharoah’s ill-will, was accordingly decapitated;[4] John the Baptist lost his head on the order of Herod;[5] James the Apostle suffered a similar fate,[6] and many other of the early martyrs were beheaded.[7]

_Burning_ to death was of pre-Mosaic authority, for we find that when it was reported to Judah that his daughter-in-law Tamar, was with child and had played the harlot, Judah said, “Bring her forth and let her be burnt.”[8] This was the punishment inflicted upon a priest’s daughter, under the Sinaitic law, for fornication,[9] and was also the form of punishment for incest with a wife’s mother.[10]

_Drowning_ was a form of capital punishment in vogue among the ancient Babylonians, the Jews and the Romans and more recently among the French, English and Americans, during the witch craze in the seventeenth century.[11]

Even before the witch craze, in England, in which death by burning and drowning was the usual mode of ending the lives of the poor unfortunates, accused of this hated and unprovable crime, there were precedents for the use of drowning, as a punishment, in that country.

During the reign of Edward II. felons were put to death by drowning, for we find that in the sixth year of the reign of that monarch, the jury for the hundred of Cornylo, in Kent, exhibited a presentment to Hervi de Stanton, and his associate justices itinerant, sitting at Canterbury, in the Octaves of St. John the Baptist, importing, that the Prior of the Christ-church in Canterbury, did, about eleven years then past, divert the course of a certain stream, called Cestling, in which such felons as were condemned, to death, within the before-mentioned hundred, ought to suffer judgment by drowning.[12]

Drowning was regarded as an especially appropriate punishment for women in Scotland, at an early day and according to Dr. Hill Burton, in 1624, eleven gipsy women were sentenced to be drowned in the North Loch, of Edinburgh, in the hollow where the Princess street Garden is now located.[13]

In 1685 two women, Margaret M’Lauchlan, a widow, and Margaret Wilson, a young girl, of eighteen, were drowned at Wigtownshire, for their religious belief. They were bound to stakes where the swift tide of the Solway overflows twice a day. After a partial unconsciousness, the young girl was revived and was urged by her friends to say “God save the King.” She refused and as the waters closed over her for the last time, she gasped: “I am Christ’s.” And thus she gained a place in history, as a martyr to her belief, and her young life was forfeited as a penalty for having incurred the religious and political bigotry of a despotic monarch.[14]

_Exposure to wild beasts_, was a common punishment of the Israelites, and Romans, for wickedness or unfaithfulness. Darius caused Daniel to be brought and cast into the den of lions,[15] for this was the law of the Persians, and the King had entered a decree that it should be so, and another ancient authority,[16] advises us that a disobedient prophet, named Jadon, met death from God, by being cast before the lions.

_Hanging_ is one of the forms of capital punishment that has survived for thousands of years, for we find that it was in general use among the ancient patriarchs,[17] the Persians[18] and the Greeks[19] and has continued as a mode of capital punishment ever since, in other civilized, or rated civilized, countries.[20]

_Precipitation, sawing asunder, slaying by spear or sword, stoning to death, strangling and suffocation_, were all different modes of inflicting the death penalty, practiced among the ancient Israelites and other ancient peoples, from the earliest time.

The children of Judah cast 10,000 Edomites from a rock to their death, according to the second book of Chronicles;[21] even the valiant David, painful to relate, when he took the cities of the children of Ammon, brought forth all the people and “cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes”;[22] the spear, javelin or dart, was to be used on trespassers, at the foot of Sinai;[23] the sword was taken by the Levites against the worshipers of the golden-calf;[24] Samuel hewed Agag to pieces with the sword;[25] stoning to death was the penalty for adultery, blasphemy, idolatry, for false prophesy and Sabbath breaking;[26] strangling was the proposed punishment for the Syrians, before Israel[27] and suffocation was used both by the ancient Jews and the Macedonians.[28]

_Crucifixion_, was a refined mode of punishment used by the Jews and Romans, in the time of the Saviour. It was borrowed by the Romans and Grecians from the Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians and Numidians, among whom it was in general vogue. Alexander is reported to have crucified two thousand Tyrians at one time, and the same number of rioters were crucified by Varos at one time, after the death of Herod.[29]

Under Claudius and Nero, various Roman governors crucified large numbers of robbers, thieves, and political and religious criminals.[30]

The method of crucifixion is accurately described in the New Testament.[31]

After conviction, the victim was scourged with the _flagellum_, which was such a severe punishment that the afflicted one frequently died before the crucifixion occurred. In Jesus’ case, the scourging seems to have taken place before the crucifixion, as was the custom.

The cross-bar was bound upon the back of the victim, or his head was placed in the _patibulum_, and he was then led through the city, accompanied by the centurions and soldiers having his execution in hand, amid the gibes and insults of the cruel crowd. The title, a piece of wood, covered with white gipsum, labeled with the crime for which he was to suffer, in letters of black, was usually carried before the condemned person, so that the curious might be advised of the cause of his death.

At the place of crucifixion, the prisoner was stripped and his clothes given to the soldiers; he was then bound to the _patibulum_ and thus raised on ladders, until the notch was reached in the upright piece, to receive it, or the cross-piece was fastened to the upright post upon the ground and then raised into an upright position, with the afflicted one bound to the cross, with his hands nailed to the ends, there to suffer the slow agonies of a lingering death, which might last for hours or perhaps for days.

The shame of this torture to which the Saviour was subjected has become not only the symbol of salvation, but the true type of that absolute renunciation of the world which characterizes the true Christian, for did not Christ Himself say: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me”?[32]

_Burying alive_, was a form of capital punishment applied in Rome as a punishment to the vestal virgins, violating their oaths of chastity and it was also in vogue in France during the middle ages.

According to the law of Numa, the unchaste Vestal was simply stoned to death,[33] but the cruel torture of burying her alive was devised by Tarquinius Priscus and inflicted from his time forward.[34]

On her conviction, the poor creature was stripped of her _vittae_ and other indicia of office and after being scourged, was attired like a corpse and placed in a closed litter, and then borne through the Forum, attended by her weeping relatives and friends, with all the ceremonies of a real funeral, to the _Campus Sceleratus_, within the walls of the city, near the Colline gate. The vault, underground, was furnished with a couch, a lamp, and a table, with a little food. The pontifex maximus offered up a prayer to Heaven for the culprit and having thus performed his sacred office, delivered her to the executioner, who led her down into the subterranean cell and drew up the ladder and filled the pit with earth even with the ground,[35] thus forever consigning to mother earth the body of her wayward daughter, who, in pursuance of her God-given instincts, had violated the unnatural law of the barbarous pagan days of ancient Rome.

The gallant French gentlemen also reserved this horrible punishment for women and we read that during the year 1302 by order of the Bailli of Sainte-Genevieve, a woman was buried alive for some petty thefts which she had committed.[36] Philip Augustus is said to have put a French provost to death in this cruel fashion, because of the crime of perjury, regarding a transaction in connection with a vineyard[37] and in the thirteenth century in Bigorre, this punishment was inflicted for murder, the murdered and his murderer being interred in the same grave.[38] One performing the unnatural crime was also buried alive, in England, at an early day, according to Fleta.[39]

_Drawing and quartering_, is of Egyptian and Roman origin, for we find that it existed at Rome five hundred years before Christ and is mentioned in the Twelve Tables.[40]

Hanging, drawing and quartering is said to have been first introduced in England in the case of William Maurice, a pirate, in 1241,[41] although it afterwards became quite common, as a punishment for treason.

According to the terms of a sentence imposed by Lord Ellenborough, the criminal convicted of treason to be thus punished was addressed as follows: “You are to be drawn on hurdles to the place of execution, where you are to be hanged, but not until you are dead; for, while still living, your body is to be taken down, your bowels torn out and burnt before your face; your head is then to be cut off and your body divided into four quarters.”[42]

Hugh Spenser, the favorite of King Edward II., was put to death at Bristol, in 1326, and his body was quartered, as was the custom of the period, in similar cases, and his head was sent to London, while each quarter of his body was sent to each of the four principal towns of the kingdom.[43]

On the execution of the Jesuit, Garnet, in England, in 1606, James I., who was more compassionate in this case than he was in the cases of witchcraft, where no punishment could be found too severe, gave orders that he should not be cut down until he was dead, so that he might be spared the tortures of drawing and quartering.[44] But no such mercy was shown to Guy Fawkes, who was tortured and drawn and quartered, the same year, after he was taken with the burning match in his hand, in his attempt to blow up the king and his parliament, in what was known as the gunpowder plot.[45]

During the thirteenth century, in England, the usual punishment for petty treason was hanging and drawing for a man and burning for a woman.[46]

_Boiling in oil_ during the reign of Henry VIII.,[47] was a punishment provided for poisoners.

Under the reign of this monarch, the power of the Crown was extended to cover powers not before recognized and while it is difficult to concede how citizens reared under the broad influence of the common law, could be brought to consent to such unusual and cruel punishment for any crime, the inhuman crime which brought about this harsh statute was such as to call for unusual handling, if not for such barbarous punishment as this act provided.

One Richard Roose had placed poison in a vessel of yeast in the Bishop of Rochester’s kitchen and as a result of eating bread in which this yeast was used, seventeen persons in the family of the Bishop and others of his friends were poisoned. The enormity of the crime caused wide-spread indignation and such crimes were made treason and the offender subject to attainder. Roose was ordered to be boiled to death and in order to deter others similarly situated from perpetrating such a cruel crime, it was also provided by the act that henceforth, every wilful murder by poisoning, should be high treason and that all such offenders should be boiled to death.[48]

Shakespeare makes the indignant Paulina, refer to this statute, in her reproachful speech to the Lords, after the good Hermione’s incarceration, in Winter’s Tale, when she asks:

“What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling In leads or oils? What old or new torture Must I receive, whose every word deserves To taste of thy most worst?”[49]

Margaret Davy, a young woman, convicted of murder by poisoning was also boiled to death, as provided by this statute, in 1542,[50] but this was the last victim to suffer such inhuman punishment and the act was soon afterward repealed.

The misguided efforts of the Church of Rome to punish heresy by use of the _Inquisition_, brought about untold suffering and misery in the world.

_The Inquisition_, was a tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church, for the discovery, repression, and punishment of heresy, unbelief and other offenses against religion. The emperors, Theodosius and Justinian, appointed officials known as Inquisitors, to look out and punish such offenders. They proceeded however in the name of the Emperors, in the secular courts, and no regular tribunal for the handling of this kind of alleged criminals, existed until the year 1248, after the fourth Lateran Council, held in the reign of Innocent III., when Innocent IV., established a permanent court for the prosecution and punishment of this class of offenders.

The prosecutions under this constitution were purely in the ecclesiastical courts, and for the next century, in France, Italy, Spain and Germany, the Pope, by appeal, regulated the severity of the punishments inflicted by the local authorities and the punishments were not so severe as they afterwards became.

In Spain, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, on account of an alleged plot to overthrow the monarchy, by the Jews and Heretics, in the year 1478, on application to Pope Sixtus IV., they were permitted to take over, as it were, the whole tribunal formerly handled as a Church affair, into the hands of the State, and with this new regime, the Spanish Inquisition had its origin.

Inquisitors were now appointed by the Crown, instead of the Church and under the career of Thomas de Torquemada, in 1483, the reign of terror commenced in Spain. Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition, places the number of persons burned to death, during Torquemada’s tenure of office, in sixteen years, in Spain, at 9,000, and during the term of office of the second head of the Inquisition, Diego Deza, in eight years, 1,600 met a similar death, by fire, as this was the customary punishment inflicted upon this hated class of innocents who opposed the ruling powers in Church and State.[51]

The procedure of the Inquisition is not without interest. The person suspected of heresy or unbelief, was arrested and thrown into prison, to be brought to trial when it suited the pleasure of his judges. The proceedings of the trial when the unfortunate one was brought into court, were secret; he was not faced with his accusers, nor were their names disclosed. The evidence of a guilty accomplice, without corroboration, was received against the accused and the person undergoing trial was liable to be put to torture, in order to extort a confession from him. When convicted, the punishment was death by fire, or on the scaffold, imprisonment in the galleys for life, or for a term of years, with forfeiture of his property, and civil infamy, if the offense was deemed not of sufficient gravity to justify burning to death.[52]

After confession, under torture, the prisoner was customarily remanded to prison and when brought before the judge, if he persisted in his profession, he was condemned. If the confession was withdrawn, he was tortured again and if he recanted a second time, he was tortured a third time, for while the theory was that he could not be convicted, unless he let his confession stand, he was tortured until he confessed and was not allowed to voluntarily retract it, oftentimes.[53]

Three judges were necessary to approve the infliction of torture to extract evidence from a person accused, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,[54] but this law was often violated and the strappado, the scourge, hanging the accused by the arms, while his back and legs were loaded with heavy weights, fire, applied to the soles of the feet and pouring water down the throat were a few of the many tortures applied[55] to extort confessions from the poor unfortunates who fell into the hands of these religious zealots, imbued with a superhuman inclination to torture their fellow-men.

Of course the subject of the Inquisition is too large a field to attempt to do more than refer to its influence upon secular law in these pages, for while it continued unabated for centuries in countries subject to the Church of Rome and was not abolished in Spain, until the reign of Joseph Bonaparte in 1808,[56] in inaugurating a system of punishment for extracting evidence from the accused, its influence was wide-spread in all other countries, where the same system of punishment was carried and with time the same vile procedure was used in most other countries of Europe, in one form or another,[57] and with its examples of torture, which were gradually adopted in other countries, the equally baleful influence of the secret procedure, which was exemplified in the Star Chamber in England and the _Chatelet_ of Paris, with the accompanying inquisitorial process, followed in the wake of this hateful institution of the middle ages.[58]

_The Grand Chatelet of Paris_, as the seat of the criminal tribunal of the realm, has a record second to no other criminal court of the same age for atrocious punishments inflicted upon the poor unfortunates who were brought before the court, seeking justice.[59]

It was the custom to torture all malefactors, or alleged criminals, brought before the criminal division of the _Chatelet_ of Paris, in the fourteenth century. The customary procedure was accordingly divided into two classes of cases, those known as _ordinaire_ and those called _extraordinaire_. In the former class of cases inquests were held to determine the guilt of the accused and in the latter inquisition was had, in which torture was habitually employed to secure a conviction.[60]

The procedure was left entirely to the discretion of the criminal judge and in a short time the judge rarely found a case for inquest, but all cases were treated as within the rule _proces extraordinaire_ and a merry chronicle of crime against criminals was here inaugurated, for long and tedious years.[61]

The only redeeming feature of the procedure of this court, was the universality of its punishments, for noble blood was made to flow equally with the plebeian, and none were exempt from the torture, who were brought before this court. If the culprit denied the alleged crime, he was tortured at once, to secure a confession and if he confessed he was tortured for confessing. On the other hand, if he failed to confess, there was no limit to the torture inflicted to extract a confession from him, so frequently it happened that in the effort to find out if a crime were really committed the poor unfortunate was killed by the torture to which he was subjected.[62]

In 1338 one Jehannin Maci, was arrested and brought before this cruel court for stealing a brass pot, found in his possession. After torture, he confessed the crime and was drawn on a hurdle and hanged.[63]

Gervaise Caussois—peace to his ashes—was brought before this august tribunal for stealing some iron tools and to induce him to confess he was tortured and promptly confessed. Thinking he might be guilty of other offenses, he was tortured again and then under the strain of the pain he suffered, he confessed to other petty crimes, when he was again tortured by use of the _tresteau_, when he again confessed to another petty misdemeanor when the judges mercifully caused him to be hanged, without more ado, thus ending his misery.[64]

In 1390 poor Fleurant de Saint-Leu, was arraigned before this heartless tribunal for the awful crime of stealing a silver buckle. He denied the crime and was twice tortured, with increasing severity, when he finally confessed, but protested that it was his first offense. The merciful judges, out of the goodness of their hearts, decided this offense, being the first, did not merit death, so on the same day he was tortured thrice, to ascertain if he was not guilty of some other offense for which he could be killed; this failing to bring the desired result, he was again twice tortured, when he admitted that three years before he had unwittingly married a prostitute, when he was afterwards hanged, as this was found to be a sufficient offense, together with the stealing of the buckle, to justify the death penalty.[65]

Poor Marguerite de la Penele, accused of stealing a ring, was tortured until she confessed and as she could not satisfy the human hyenas who were trying her, for some money found upon her person, she was again severely tortured and although no further confession was extracted from her she was buried alive.[66]

The question _ordinaire_ and _extra-ordinaire_, as put to the wretches brought before this criminal court at Paris, was to be answered by the accused while fastened to the wall, on a trestle or sliding table, with his wrists fastened in two rings; his mouth was forced open with a horn and water was poured down his throat, until he answered the question whether or not he was guilty of the offense charged against him.[67]

Another form of torture used in the _Chatelet_ at Paris, was what was called the “boots,” being solid boards, pierced with holes, encasing the legs, up to the knees. Ropes were inserted through the holes and drawn so tight, by means by pegs of wood, driven into the holes, as to almost break the bones and twist the flesh off the legs, if the accused persisted in refusing to confess the crime charged against him.[68] This horrible and barbarous practice was not completely abolished in France, until the year 1788, when the monarchy repealed the law authorizing such cruelty, for the alleged reason that under such stress of punishment men would confess to anything.[69]

_The Guillotine_ was not a French invention, as generally supposed, but was imported from Italy, where a similar instrument, known as the _Mannaya_, had been used for centuries before it was used either in France or England.[70] It had been used in England long before it was used in France and was known as the _Halifax Maiden_, because of the special charter, giving this town a right to use it for petty larceny of any article exceeding thirteen halfpenny.[71] It was used in France in the sixteenth century and at Toulouse, in 1632, it was the engine which accomplished the execution of the Duc de Montmorency.[72] Doctor Joseph Guillotin brought the same engine of death before the National Assembly, in December, 1789 and he is generally recognized as the inventor of this terrible machine, which was used to decapitate so many of the nobility during the terrible French Revolution,[73] but a similar instrument had executed thousands in Italy centuries before it was known or used in France.[74]

_The Massola_ was used in Italy, at an early date, along with the _Mannaya_ or guillotine, as it was afterwards called, in France, and by use of the former machine, the criminal was stunned with a blow from a mace, much as the butcher slaughters the ox or hog by striking him on the head and then while stunned, his throat was pierced with a long knife and his chest was ripped open.[75]

But let us turn from the contemplation of other instruments used to accomplish the death of the criminals of the middle ages, and examine some of the milder forms of punishments in vogue.

These were only some of the most prominent methods of inflicting capital punishment upon alleged criminals, among the old Israelites, Persians, Greeks and Romans, and other lesser punishments, such as mutilation consisting in blinding,[76] cutting off the hands or ears,[77] branding,[78] plucking off the hair,[79] flaying,[80] scourging with thorns,[81] the stocks, stripes,[82] the wheel, the rack, the comb with sharp teeth, the burning tile, the low vault in which the culprit was bent double, the heavy hog-skin whip, and the injection of vinegar into the nostrils, were a few of the lesser punishments inflicted by these and other peoples for many long and tortuous years, upon all classes of criminals and accused persons.[83].

_Blinding_, under the Mosaic dispensation, was claimed to have been authorized under the law of retaliation, “an eye for an eye,”[84] etc., but it was seldom used among the patriarchs in old Israel.

The Assyrians and Babylonians used this means of torturing the criminals convicted of rebellion or revolt, in order to prevent them from doing further harm and to furnish an example to others of the enormity of the punishment for such an offense against the government.[85] We read in the book of Esther that such criminals were not permitted to look upon the king,[86] and in Persia this method of punishment was inflicted for rascality, thieving and rebellion.[87]

According to the Code of Hammurabi, adopted some 2,500 years before Christ’s time, a surgeon of Babylon who performed an unsuccessful operation, lost the hand that operated upon the patient and for other offenses, mutilation and blindness was provided for by this ancient code of laws.[88]

William the Conqueror prohibited his nobles from inflicting the death penalty upon criminals who formerly suffered death by hanging, but in lieu of this more humane punishment, he authorized that criminals convicted of certain felonies should be blinded, by having their eyes pulled out; they were subjected to castration and to mutilation, by having their _hands and feet cut off_, according to the greatness of the offense, to the end that they might live and furnish a horrible example to others committing such crimes.[89]

According to Wigorn, in his annals, certain Welchmen, convicted of treason, in the eleventh century, had all these several kinds of punishment inflicted upon them.[90]

Fox, in his work on Martyrology, reports a miracle in the case of Elivard, of Weston Regis, in Bedfordshire, who, being convicted of stealing a pair of hedging gloves and a whetstone, in the reign of Henry II., lost his eyes and genitals, and through his devout prayers, at the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, they were restored to him again.[91]

This punishment by blinding and mutilation continued but a short time, in England, however, for King Henry I., in the year 1108, in the ninth year of his reign repealed this law and provided hanging for felons convicted of theft or robbery,[92] who had formerly been subject to the punishment of blinding or mutilation, by this harsh law of William the Conqueror.

In Switzerland, at an early day, blasphemers were subject to having their _lips and tongue cut off_[93] and under the custom of Avignon, in 1243, a perjurer was liable to punishment by having his lips and nose removed.[94]

_Cutting off the ears_ was a punishment inflicted upon religious and political criminals in England, as late as the seventeenth century and the notable case of Bastwick, Burton and Prynne, who had their ears removed all at one time, in the Palace Yard, in London, in the year 1637, illustrates the barbarous cruelty then obtaining as to this class of criminals.

The prisoners were all favorites with the crowd, who strewed flowers and nose-gays around them, at the place of execution. The sheriff commenced with Burton, who was an especial favorite with the by-standers and when he removed each ear the people wept and groaned and roared as if each one in the assembly had his own ears removed. Bastwick loaned his own knife to the officer and made use of his professional information to advise him just how to remove his ears, so as to injure him the least and asked him to lop them close, that it might not be necessary for him “to come there again.” Prynne had had his ears roughly cropped off three years before and when the officer again attempted to remove what remained, it gave him great pain, but the stern old Puritan endured it without a groan, such was the religious zeal with which they were all three sustained in this act of martyrdom. After the fearful ordeal was completed they were all three returned by the officer to the prison,[95] and thus ended another fearful example of misguided authority and religious bigotry, in thus pillorying and torturing three patriotic citizens who violated no law and who had committed no other offense than to speak plainly and then dared to refuse to bow the knee to an authority they did not recognize.

_Branding with a hot iron_, was a punishment inflicted by the Persians, upon the class of criminals who were deported, in order that they could subsequently be identified and to furnish an example to others of the fact that they had paid the penalty of the law as a result of their misdeed.[96] In Biblical days, when burning was inflicted as a punishment for adultery or fornication, branding on the forehead was also used, as a mark of shame.[97] Slaves were sometimes branded on the hand, by the ancient Jews,[98] much as horses are branded by the owner, in the western country, to identify the animal, but this was not in accordance with the Mosaic law, for such disfigurement was forbidden by the code of the old Israelites.[99]

Formerly, in England, branding was used in the case of all clergyable crimes, by burning in the hand, but this law was repealed in 1829. In the middle ages, in England, branding with a hot iron, was a mode of punishment used for various offenses. The iron used had the form which it was desired to leave on the culprit’s skin. It has not been in use for years, except in desertions from the army or navy, and this form of branding is regulated by statute and of late years ink, or other material is used, instead of a hot iron. By the Mutiny Act, of 1858,[100] it was provided “On the first and on every subsequent conviction, for desertion, the court-martial, in addition to any other punishment, may order the offender to be marked, on the left side, two inches below the arm-pit, with the letter D, such letter not to be less than an inch long, and to be marked upon the skin with some ink or gun-powder, or other preparation, so as to be visible and conspicuous, and not liable to be obliterated.” This, in old England, as late as the Victorian age, shows the early training of the English upon the custom of punishment by branding.

_Plucking off the hair_, or scalping, was not always confined to the American Indians, but according to the inspired word of the Jews, it was a form of punishment, in ancient Israel, inflicted upon Jews who had indulged in mixed marriages.[101]

According to the prophet, in Isaiah, scalping, as a judicial practice was common in his time, for he says: “I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that _plucked off the hair_: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.”[102]

And according to the Biblical account of this ancient and severe punishment, inflicted upon criminals in old Israel, they were not as compassionate as the American Indians, who first killed their man, then removed the scalp with a knife, but they tore off the hair in such a brutal and barbarous manner, as to remove the skin by main force, with the hair, without the use of a knife or other instrument to augment or ameliorate the suffering of the criminal.[103]

_Flaying_, was a punishment in vogue among the Persians and Assyrians, and according to Rawlinson, the Assyrians would flay the victim, even after life was extinct[104] and the Persians were accustomed to flay and then crucify the criminals and Herodotus states that they used the skins of human beings thus obtained.[105]

Along with this atrocious punishment of flaying, the Persians also seem to have been addicted to the recall of judges,[106] for Herodotus tells how King Cambyses not only recalled an unpopular judge, known as Sisamnes but actually flayed him alive, and covered the judgment-seat with his skin, as a warning to the next judge to be more careful in his judgments and decrees.[107]

Manes is said to have been flayed alive, by Behram, king of Persia, in the year 277 and his skin was afterwards stuffed with straw, much as modern taxidermists stuff the skins of wild animals, and in this shape it was posted at one of the gates of Djondischaour.[108]

In the sixth century Chosroes punished Nacoragan, one of his generals by flaying him alive, on account of his cowardice and his skin, when torn backward off his body, from his head to his heels, retained the form of the limbs, from which it had been stripped, and in this manner, it was sown up and inflated and exposed on a high projection, as a terrible example to other soldiers, of the punishment they would be subjected to if also guilty of cowardice in the discharge of their duty as soldiers.[109]

Flaying is of rare appearance in Europe, but one or two cases are recorded. Philip the Fair is said to have inflicted such punishment upon the lovers of his sister-in-law, in 1314, and Pope John XXII., after the conviction of Hugues Geraldi, Bishop of Cahors, in 1317, for sorcery, handed him over to the Judge of Avignon, who caused him to be flayed alive and then torn asunder by four horses, after which his remains were burnt.[110]

_The Wheel_ was used as a method of punishment in France and England and other countries, during the middle ages and down to a comparatively recent period. St. Catherine, of Alexandria is said to have been put to death on a wheel, with jagged edges or spikes, which tore and cut her tender limbs, after the fashion of a modern chaff-cutter. According to the report of her case, the wheel was shattered, during the torture, by Divine Grace, hence the embroidered tunic worn by the Knights of Mount Sinai, a religious order, instituted in her honour, in 1063, representing a broken wheel, with spikes.[111]

Bouchard, who was implicated in the murder of Charles le Bon, Count of Flanders, in the twelfth century, was bound to a wheel suspended in mid-air, so that the vultures could pluck out his eyes and otherwise torture him. After his eyes were torn from their sockets and his face slit and torn by the sharp beaks of the birds of prey, he was finally put out of his misery, by darts and javelins, shot into his quivering body, by the blood-thirsty mob below.[112]

_Scourging with thorns_, was another form of punishment inflicted upon the peoples of other tribes, by the good old Jewish patriarchs.

Gideon threatened that when the Lord of Israel should deliver Zebah and Zalmunna into his hands that he would tear their flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars.[113] And according to the Divine word, when the men of Succoth were delivered into his hand he took the elders of the city and with briars and thorns, he scourged them.[114]

Knotted sticks, or ropes, with thorns, or iron points were customarily used as instruments of chastisement by the Jews, when they were successful in subjugating another race of people[115] and they did not hesitate to apply the scourge on all occasions, as they regarded this as a method of teaching foreign nations their strength and their power to punish, so that it would be advertised abroad and cause other timorous nations to voluntarily submit to their authority.

David smote the Moabites with a line and cast them down to the ground and he scourged them and they became his servants and brought him gifts, to avoid being further scourged in this manner.[116] And he brought the children of Ammon out from the cities and not only scourged them with thorns and knotted sticks, with iron pikes in the sticks, but subjected them to saws and arrows of iron and made them to pass through the brick kiln.[117]

_The Bilboes_, were used in Spain and England, at an early day, for slanderers and other petty offenders. By means of this instrument, the culprit was held with his feet aloft, on his back, exposed to the public gaze and ridicule of the passers-by.

The American Colonists made frequent use of this instrument of punishment and we read that in good old Massachusetts, in August, 1632, one “James Woodward was sett in the bilbowes, for being drunk at the Newetowne,” the name Cambridge then went by.[118]

_The Ducking-stool_, a stool or seat, arranged at the end of a rope tied to a long pole, so it could be lowered into the water, was used as a punishment for “scolds” and “slanderers” in old England and by the early American Colonies. Virginia, Maryland and other of the American Colonies, provided for the use of the ducking-stool and other similar correctionary punishments, by statutes.[119]

As late as the year 1811, in Georgia, one Miss Palmer was sentenced to be ducked, as a scold or slanderer, in the Oconee River[120] and in Washington, according to the interesting book on “Curious Punishments of By-Gone Days,” by Alice Morse Earle, almost in our own day, Mrs. Anne Royal, Editor of the “Washington Paul Pry,” was sentenced before Judge William Cranch to suffer punishment by being ducked in the Potomac River.[121]

_The Stocks_ graced each parish, in England, at an early day and along with the _pillory_ and the _rack_, were used on different classes of petty criminals. Many criminals were also punished by the American Colonists by use of the stocks and the pillory, and in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia and Maryland, the manners and morals of many an early patriot were mended by the use of these instruments.[122]

_The Rack_ was a wooden framework, in which the culprit was fastened and by means of ropes and pulleys his arms and legs were violently stretched and pulled until the tension caused the most intense pain and frequently the bones were broken by the use of this fearful appliance. According to Lord Coke, the appliance was first introduced into the Tower, in England, by the Duke of Exeter, in 1467, and for this reason it was called, “The Duke of Exeter’s Daughter.” The Tower rack was in the long vaulted dungeon below the Armoury and continued as an instrument of torture for many centuries. During the reign of Elizabeth, it was a customary means of torture and in 1580 the Jesuit Priests concerned in the alleged Jesuit Invasion, were terribly racked to compel them to disclose the names of their leaders.[123]

Shakespeare makes frequent references to this instrument of torture, so generally used during his time, in England. Thus, in Merchant of Venice, Portia refers to the enforced statements of Bassanio:

“Ay, but I fear, you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak anything.”[124]

_The Brank_, known as the “Scold’s bridle,” was an iron hood, with a ring, around the face, with a flat tongue of iron to be placed in the mouth, over the tongue. It was applied, with the “scold” or slanderer tied in a public place, where she was subjected to the ridicule of the passers-by and was generally used to correct scolds and fussy women, for many years, in both England and America. It was used on the poor unfortunates during the Salem Witchcraft craze and many an old dame in good old England was made to bridle her tongue and desist from gossiping or henpecking her husband, because of the fear of the “scold’s bridle” and the gag, used indiscriminately, in all such cases.[125]

Fortunately, with the dawn of better days, this torture system began to decline and in most civilized countries, such “crimes against criminals” are now but curious and quaint, yet oft-times terrible and fearful examples of the customs and procedure of other days.

The strange thing is that such things lasted as long as they did in a growing, increasing world of knowledge, with men who sought the truth and attempted to attain the higher ideals and who should have been imbued with the love of their fellow-man, which the sufferings and mistakes of the past had, for centuries, led them to emulate.

With the striking example in history of the horrible punishment by Crucifixion, all men now dread to think of the time when innocence and goodness could be so crucified, yet for two thousand years, in the slow evolution of the human race, other innocents and good men and women have been tortured and racked by men and women holding the superior power and authority over the masses, who through superstition and delusion, were led to endorse the cruel domination of such misused force.

When we stop and contemplate the enormity of “Man’s inhumanity to man,” as recorded in the lessons of the past, “the marvel is that man can smile, dreaming his ghostly, ghastly dream.”

The basis of such misanthropy lies in the fact that criminals have been treated as enemies, to such an extent that mankind has warred upon them and committed deeds of war, when, in point of fact, the alleged criminal, frequently was less guilty than his judges, and, if guilty, he was only a mistaken man, needing correction, but not torture or death, to teach him the better path to tread. Would that future generations might be fully emancipated from the selfish creed which calls that good, which works _me_ weal and holds that ill, which _me_ alone doth harm or hurt.

For our lives, like ravelled skeins, cross back and forth, connect and blend,

“They change with place, they shift with race; and, in the veriest span of Time, Each Vice has worn a Virtue’s crown; all Good was banned as Sin or Crime.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Justice is the bond which keeps the interest of individuals united and without this virtue men would return to their original state of barbarity. Marquis Beccaria, on “Crimes and Punishments,” 9.

Carlyle has well said: “Cruel is the panther of the woods, the she-bear, bereaved of her whelps; but there is in man a hatred crueler than that.”

[2] Beccaria’s “Crimes and Punishments,” p. 41.

The three theories regarding lawful punishment, are, retribution, prevention and reformation. According to the first of these theories, the object of punishment is the vindication of the law upon the offender, by the infliction of such pain or penalty as his crime deserves, hence, the motto for this theory, might be properly said to be Justice. The second idea, makes prevention of further crime, the sole object, the criminal being placed where he can do no further wrong to society, and the motto of this school of legal philosophers, can therefore properly be said to be protection. The third and by far the most philanthropic doctrine of punishment regards the object of correction as the primary one to be attained and that all punishment should cease when the criminal has been reformed. The motto for the last school of philosophy, might properly be said to be Brotherly Love.

[3] Rawlinson’s “Ancient Monarchies.”

[4] Genesis, XL., 19, 22.

[5] Matthew, XIV., 8, 10.

[6] Acts, XII., 2.

[7] Revelation, XX., 4. A common punishment during the French Revolution.

[8] Genesis, XXXVIII., 24.

[9] Leviticus, XXI., 9.

[10] Leviticus, XX., 14.

[11] John’s “Babylonian Laws,” etc., Josephus; Matthew, XVIII., 6.

The Emperor Tiberius, after torturing the victims of his wrath, cast them into the sea, where they were drowned. Sueton. Tiberii, lxii; Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) p. 377.

In France, death by drowning was inflicted upon the incontinent, as late as the sixteenth century and it was revived again during the revolution by the infamous Carrier, at Nantes, in the eighteenth century.

Ninety priests were loaded into the _gabare_ and sunk in the river Seine. Then a hundred and thirty-eight persons were similarly drowned, but the _gabare_ was soon done away with and men, women and children were stripped naked and thrown into the river, in broad daylight and not even under the cover of darkness. They were tied together, feet and feet and hands and hands, and in their hideous death struggles they churned the water, for the edification of the cruel crowd, until the last poor struggler had sunk to his final rest. (See article by W. H. Davenport Adams, “Pains and Penalties,” in The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 362.)

[12] Herbert’s Antiquities (1804), 154; Ex. vet. cod. M. S. pene’s Rog. Twysden bar. p. 108.

[13] Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 501.

[14] Archibald’s Stewart’s “Wigtoun Martyrs.”

[15] Daniel, VI., 16.

[16] Josephus, Ant. VIII., IX., 1.

[17] 2 Samuel, IV., 12.

[18] Rawlinson’s Anc. Mon. i, 477; Layard’s Ninevah and Babylon, 295 note.

[19] Herodotus, iii, 159; Josephus, Ant. VI., XIV., 8.

[20] Beccaria’s “Crimes and Punishments.”

[21] 2 Chronicles, XXV., 12.

[22] 1 Chronicles, XX., 3.

[23] Exodus, XIX., 13.

[24] Exodus, XXXII., 27.

[25] 1 Samuel, XV., 33.

[26] Hasting’s Dict. Bible, vol. I., p. 527.

[27] 1 Kings, XX., 31.

[28] Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, iii, 246.

Hanging was ordained by the Laws of Ina, in England, twelve hundred years ago. (Herbert’s Antiquities, p. 153.) Until 1783 Tyburn Tree, at the west end of Oxford Road (now street), was the usual place for execution of felons by hanging, in England.

[29] Josephus, Ant. XVII., X., 9.

[30] _Idem._, XX., V., 2.

[31] John, XIX.

[32] Matthew, XVI., 24; Mark, VIII., 14; Luke, IX., 23.

All authorities agree that of all deaths crucifixion was the most abhorrent, not only because of the pain resulting, but also because of the shame of such a death. Cicero, in his Oration against Varres, declared that it was impossible to find a fit word to describe such an outrage as the crucifixion of a Roman citizen, yet the gentle Galilean suffered this horrible death, with perfect resignation.

[33] Cedrenus, Hist. Comp. p. 148, 259.

[34] Dions, iii. 67: Zonaras, vii, 8.

[35] Dions, ix, 40; Smith’s Dict. Gr. & Rom. Ant. By a beneficent law, the poor lady’s paramour was simply scourged to death, for his complicity in her awful crime.

[36] Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 366.

[37] _Ante idem._

[38] _Idem._, p. 367.

[39] Fleta, p. 54; II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 556.

[40] Rawlinson’s _Anc. Mon._; Niebuhr, ii, 313.

[41] Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 368.

[42] _Ante idem._

[43] Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 496.

[44] _Ante idem._, p. 368.

[45] Green’s History of England.

[46] Select Pl. Cr. pl. 191; Munim. Gildh. i, 101; II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 511.

[47] 22 Henry VIII. c. 9. This statute was passed in 1531.

[48] IV. Reeve’s History English Law, p. 427.

[49] The Winter’s Tale, Act III., Scene II.; White’s “Law in Shakespeare,” p. 186, Sec. 146.

[50] Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 364.

As late as the sixteenth century, in England, counterfeiters were punished by being thrown into boiling water. Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 364.

[51] Llorente, ii, 147, 237.

[52] Lea’s “History of the Inquisition.”

[53] Lea’s “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) p. 404.

[54] Lea’s “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) p. 409.

[55] _Ante idem._ 407, 409.

[56] Llorente’s _Istoria de la Inquisition_; Lea’s “History of the Inquisition.”

[57] _Ante idem._

[58] Lea’s “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 451.

[59] Du Cange’s _Questionarius_.

[60] L. Tanon, Registre Crimenel de la Justice de S. Martin-des-Champs, Introd. p. 85.

[61] _Ante idem._

In applying the ordinary and extraordinary question, in France, by means of the _estrapado_, an iron key was placed between the palms of the accused’s hands, and they were tied behind his back and, by means of a rope passed through a pulley, in the ceiling, he was raised twelve inches above the floor with a weight of one hundred and eighty pounds to his right foot. This was the “ordinary” question. In applying the “extraordinary” interrogation, the same process was used, but the accused was raised up to the ceiling, with a two hundred and fifty pound weight tied to his foot, in a running line, two or three times, with the result that he usually swooned before the ceiling was reached the last time. (Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 504.)

[62] Lea’s “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 441, 442.

[63] Registrae Criminel de Chatelet de Paris, 1, 36.

[64] _Ante idem._, p. 36.

[65] Register Criminal du Chatelet de Paris, 201, 209.

[66] _Idem._, p. 322.

[67] Lalanne, Recueil des anciennes Lois Francaisse, tome xx, pp. 284, etc.

[68] _Ante idem._

[69] Article by W. H. Davenport Adams, in Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 506, entitled “_Pains and Penalties_.”

[70] History of Jean D’Auton; Holinshed’s History.

[71] Holinshed; Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 371.

[72] _Ante idem._

[73] The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 372.

[74] _Ante idem._

[75] The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 370.

[76] Exodus, XXI., 24; 2 Kings, XXV., 7; Rawlinson’s Anc. Mon.

[77] 2 Samuel, IV., 12; Rawlinson’s Anc. Mon. iii, 7.

[78] Rawlinson’s Anc. Mon. iii, 194.

[79] 2 Samuel, X., 4.

[80] Rawlinson’s Anc. Mon. i, 478; iii, 246; Herodotus, IV., 64.

[81] Samuel, VIII., 2; XII., 31; Stanley’s History Jew. Ch.

[82] Leviticus, XIX., 20. 2 Corinthians, XI., 24; Josephus, Ant. IV., VIII., 21.

[83] Lea’s “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 375.

[84] Exodus, XXI., 24; Leviticus, XXIV. 20.

[85] John’s “Babylonian Laws,” etc.; Rawlinson’s _Anc. Mon._

[86] Esther, VII., 8.

[87] Rawlinson’s _Anc. Mon._ Josephus, _Ant._

[88] John’s “Babylonian Laws,” etc.

[89] Herbert’s Antiquities, p. 153; Michelet.

[90] Flor. Wigorn, Annals, _Ann._ 1098.

[91] Fox’s Martyrology, lib. IV., fol. 229.

[92] Herbert’s Antiquities (1804), p. 154.

[93] Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 495.

[94] _Ante idem._

[95] Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, 373.

[96] Rawlinson’s _Anc. Mon._ ii, 194.

[97] Hastings Dict. of Bible, i, p. 523.

[98] Isaiah, XLIV., 5.

[99] Leviticus, XIX., 28.

[100] 21 Victoria, c. 9, sec. 35.

Branding was used by the American Colonists and in New England was a common punishment for Quakers, who were branded with red hot iron, on the shoulder, with a letter “H” for Heretic. (Alice Morse Earle’s “Curious Punishments of By-Gone Days,” pp. 138, 148.)

[101] “In those days, also saw I Jews, that had married wives, of Ashdol, of Ammon, and of Moah.... And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and _plucked off their hair_, and made them swear, by God, saying Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.” Nehemiah, XIII., 23, 25.

[102] Isaiah, L., 6.

[103] 2 Mac. VII., 7.

[104] Ancient Monarchies, i, 478; Layard’s Ninevah and Babylon.

[105] Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, iii, 246; Herodotus, iv, 64, v, 25.

[106] John’s “Babylonian Laws,” etc.

[107] Herodotus, _ante_.

[108] Gibbon’s Rome.

[109] Agathiu’s “Life of Justinian.”

[110] Bertrandy’s “Un Eveque Supplicie.”

[111] Martin’s “_Les Vies des Saints_.”

[112] Segur’s Memoirs and Anecdotes.

[113] Judges, VIII., 7.

[114] Judges, VIII., 16.

[115] 1 Kings, XII., 11.

[116] 2 Samuel, VIII., 2.

[117] 2 Samuel, XII., 31.

[118] “Curious Punishments of By-Gone Days,” by Alice Morse Earle, p. 5.

[119] “Curious Punishments of By-Gone Days,” by Alice Morse Earle, pp. 17, 20.

[120] _Ante idem._, p. 25.

[121] _Ante idem._, p. 28.

[122] The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 373; Alice Morse Earle’s “Curious Punishments of By-Gone Days,” pp. 29, 43.

[123] The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 46, p. 499.

[124] Act III., Scene II. For many other references to this instrument of torture, by Shakespeare, see note, to section 82, in White’s “Law in Shakespeare,” pp. 116, 118.

[125] Alice Morse Earle’s “Curious Punishments of By-Gone Days,” pp. 96, 105.