Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1849-03-29
A&REEN MOUNTAIN

and the physicians assembled at his mas
ter's house, to confer upon this systematic
poisoning. To this he added, that they
needed only to go the castle, and they would
find the poison in abundance, ready for use,
and to make sure of this, if they would only
take him with them, he would show them
the cabinet in which his master kept it."
This was sufficient for the ignorant rude
rabble. The ceachman was again placed
in safe custody and after this important
discovery, all fastened to the public house,
before which the gentleman himself lay
bound to the ground. No sooner had the
crowd, who remained standing round their
prisoner, heard what the party coming from
the church, had to communicate, on the
authority of the servant, than furious
outcry for revenge announced the rage of
the mob-the mob at all times a fearful
monster, but ten times more fearful in a
land of slavery and ignorance.
The prisoner, for such he appeared in
the eyes of the befooled multitude, was
stripped of his clothes and with a cord a
round his neck, was dragged to the smithy.
Like raging furies the women fell up
on the miserable man with tongs, knives,
scissors, anything that come to hand with
they might inAict wounds upon his person,
With her wild hair flying, and in a state of
desperation, one mother rushed forward with
her only child Just dead, in her arms, and
CRASHED her teeth at the victim, without
having at the moment, consciousness sufi-
cient to injure him. Old grey haired men,
tottered in the rage of their hearts, after the
crowd Children screamed from the open
windows; dogs howled, yeIdared not ven
ture beyond the Threshold, and the clock
in the tower moved by the sinful breath of
feudality and despotism, struck one.
Arrived at the smithy, the victim was
laid upon the block which served for the
iron hopping of the wheels, and revenge be-
gan its newly devised modes of torture
We cannot bear to go through all these de-
vices of cruelty and rage; among other
things he was made to swallow the chloride
of lime, which had been found in the car
riage. Let this suffice, that after suffering
for one whole hour he died
Shortly before the death of the unhappy
man, the clergyman of the village came in
to the midst Of the rabble, and with elevat-
ed cruciiX, conjured them in the name of
God, to abstain from such deeds of cruelty,
and to reflect on the punishment of Heaven
and of Justice, He, however, after the
most fearful treatment, was compelled to
pray for his own life, and to promise belief
in the poisoning
The inhabitants of the village had now
arrived at certainty with regard to the poi.
soning, and the excitement of their minds
rose in consequence to a still higher pitch
of rage and thirst of vengeance. Not even
the servant who had given this certainty
could escape horrible death. His perjury
was revenged on the following night, when
peasant rused in state Of frenzy from
the death bed of his wife and split his skull
with an axe.
The misery was great. The cholera on.
ly ragged the more violently in proportion as
the inhabitats who believed themselves poi
soned, refused in their desperation to drink
water The more reasonable portion coun-
seled the purifying and emptying of the wells
which was afterwards DONE
Such were some of the fearful occurren.
ces which made the spring and summer of
1881 time Of sorrow to the oppressed and
wofully ignorant inhabitants of this part of
Hungary.