The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-04-08 00:00:00

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE BOOK OF DATS: Pert lII.—W. and R. Cham-
bers, London and Edinburgh—lt is a trite saying that
"in the writing of many books there is no end ;" but
the work before us will be found indispensahle to all
who would themselves know of the peculiar customs of
our ancestors, an well as of the manners and customs
worthy of reessid in other countries. Here we possess
trots derived from a thousand different sources not
otherwise as filable to the great Mots of readers,arranged
Is order, and presented in • popular and pleasing
manner. Every page teems with information, accept-
able alike in the drawieg-rooms of the nobility and the
• t'ages ef the peasantry—information which, if tree-
eured up in the storehouse of the memory, would afford
cenversational material suitable for all occasions in
every chew of society. Among the articles in the pre•
sent part is a chaeter on the famous "South Sea
Bubble," another on " Skating," from which we learn
that skates were anciently made from the leg bones of
animals. The sad fate of Captain Allen Gardiner will
probably he in the recollection of many of our readers,
but here is a anceint account, which will be read with
interitn. "Wonders in the Air" will be devoured with
avidity by the lovers of the marvellous, an I form i
theme for gossip over many a tea-table. From the chap-
ter on "the commencement of gas lighting" we learn
thet Pall-moll, the trot street in any city, was first
illuminated with gas on the 28th January, 1807. The
Fart also contaius numerous anecdotes of remarkable
persons and things, and brief sketches of the lives .f
some of the most famed personages in history. Under
the heading of "St. Anthony and the pigs," we have
an account of several legal prosecutions of the lesser
animals. On the Continent, down to a comparatively
late period, the lower animals were in all respects con-
sidered amenable to the laws. Domestic animals were
tried in the common criminal courts, and their punish-
ment on conviction was death ; wild an.msls fell under
the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts, and their pun•
ishment was banishment and death by exorcism and
excommunication. Nor was the latter a light punish-
ment We all knew bow St. Patrick exorcised the
Irish reptiles into the sea ; and St. Bernard, one day,
by peevishly saying "Bc thou excommunicated," to •
blue bottle By, that annoyed him by buzzing about hie
ears, unwittingly destroyed the flies of a whole district.
The prerogative of trying the domestic animals was
founded on the Jewish law, as laid down in Exodus :xi.,
28, and other places in the Old Testament. In every
instance advocates were assigned to defend the animals,
and the whole proceedings, trial, sentence, and execu-
tion, were conducted with the strictest formalities of
justice. The researches of French antiquaries have
brought to light the records of ninety-two processes
againet animals, tried in their courts from 1120 to 1740
when the host trial and executian, that of a cow, took
place. The proceedings in the trial of wild onimals
a noxious description, as rats, locusts, caterpillars, tec.,
in the ecclesiastical courts, and were founded on the
following thesis : As God cursed the serpent, David the
mountains of Gilboa, our Saviour the barren fig-tree, so
in like manner the Church had full power and authority
to exorcise, anathematise, and excoinmunicate all
animate and inanimate things. We present our readers
with a sketch of one or two of the trials recorded in the
number, as a specimen. Among the trials of individual
animals for special acts of turpitude, one of the most
amusing was that of a sow and her six young ones, at
Lavegny, in 1457, on a charge of their having murdered
and partly eaten a child. The sow was found guilty
and condemned to death; but the pigs were acquitted
on account of their youth, and the bad example of their
mother, and the absence of direct proof as to their hav-
ing been concerned in the eating of the child. Legal
proceedings against animals were not confined to France.
At Beale, in 1474, • cock was tried for having laid an
egg. For the peasecution it was "proved" that cocks'
eggs were of inestimable value for mixing in certain
magical ereparatione ; that a sorcerer would rather
possess a cock's egg, than be master of a philosopher's
stone ; and that in Pagan lands, Satan employed witches
to hatch each eggs, from which proceeded animals most
injurious to all of the Christian faith and race. The
advocate for the defence admitted the facts of the case
but asked what evil animus had been proved against his
client, what injury to man or beast had it effected?
Besides, the laying of an egg was an involuntary act,
and as ouch, not punishable by law. If the crime of
sorcery were imputed, the cock was innocent; for there
was no instance on record of Setae ever having made a
contract with the brute creation. In reply, the public
prosecutor alleged that, though the devil could not
make contact with brutes, he souietimes entered into
them ; anl though the swine possessed by devils, as
mentioned in Scripture, were involuntary agents, yet
they, nevertheless, were punished by being canoed to
rue down a steep !dace into the net, and so perished its
the waters. The pleadings in the ease were voluminous,
suffice it to say, the cock was condemned to death, not
as a cock, but as a sorcerer or devil in the form of a
cock, and was with its egg burned at the stake, with all
the due forts and solemnity of a judicial punishment.
As the lower animals were anciently amenable to law
in Switzerland. so in peculiar circumstances, they could
be received as witnesses. And we have been informed
by a distinguished Sardinian lawyer, that a similar law
Is still, or was to a very late period, recognised in Savoy.
If a man's house were broken into between sunset and
sunrise, and the owner of the house killed the intruder,
the act was considered a justifiable homicide, But it
was considered just possible that a man, who lived all
alone by himself, might iuvite or entice a person, whom
he wished to kill, to spend the evening with him, and
after murdering his victim, assert that he did it in de-
fence of his person and property, the slain man havieg
been • burglar. So when a person was killed under
such circumstances, the solitary householder was not
held innocent, unless he produced • dog, a out, or •
cock that had been an inmate of the house, and wit-
nessed the death of the portion killed. The owner of
the house was comps lled to make his declaration of
innocence on oath before one of those animals, and if it
did not contradict him, he was considered guiltless'
the law taking it for granted that the Deity would
cause a miraculous manifestation by a dumb animal,
rather than allow a murderer to escape from justice.
MODERN METER, Part V.,: Tenant and Co., London.
This new metiical magazine mproves rather than other-
wise as it proceeds. "The Friend of the Family" and
" Belle of the Day," two lengthy poets written in a
comic strain, are continued. We have also part 2 of
"The Cross of Braoksley," a hive poem of no mean
merit by Louisa Crow. Several of the pieces are by
Mr. Edwin Irwin, a new Irish poet of considerable pro-
mise, whom, we understand "Modern Metre" has been
the means of introducing to the literary world. Mr.
Irwin's poems are announced for publication in a sepa-
rate volume.