The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1874-10-30
Furnishing Animals for Murder.

The London Athenaum publishes
some curious particulars relating to the
custom which prevailed in France dur
ing several centuries, of meeting to an
imals the same punishment as to men,
for the crime of murder. For instance:
On the 4th of June, 1904, pig found
guilty of devouring the babe of one Jehan
Lenfant, cowherd, was publicly hang
ed from a gibbet near Laon. No ae-
count is preserved of a galIows-confes-
sion having been elected from the
swinish felon. On the 10th of January,
1857, charge of homicide on the per-
was brought against whole family of
pigs, including the mother and her half
dozen offspring. After grave and pro-
tracted trial, the matron was judged
guilty, and condemned to be hanged by
her hind heels from the branch of a
tree, until life should be extinct. The
sentence was summarily carried out.
The six piglings, in consideration of
their extreme youth and consequent ir-
responsibility before the law, were mer-
cifully spared their lives. The presence
of blood, smearing feet and snout, was
convincing evidence that they had shar-
ed the spoil and assisted in managing
the deceased; but they were not regarded
as accessories to the murder. They
were, therefore, restored to their owner,
on condition that, should further testi-.
mony turn up convicting them of full
completely in their mothers horrible
crime, they should be delivered over to
suffer such penalty as the law might de-
cree. Their owner, however, declined
to resume charge of the six little per-
verted brutes who so early in life had
the stain of blood on their souls. There
fore they were declared forfeited, and
passed into the possession of the noble
damsel, Katherine de Bernault, of
Savigny. OF their further career his
tory fails to make any mention.
Again: On the I'd of March, 1862, the
/ Chapter of Charles was called upon to
try painful case, in which pig was
accused of having killed young girl.
The circumstances proved the culprit
guilty, and he was hanged on a gallows
erected, as an awful warming, on the very
spot where the murder was committed.
/ So late as 1912, another villainous pig
was convicted of having worried to
death and partially devoured a child
/ IA or 10 months old, the son Of mason
residing at Molinchart, within the juris-
diction of Laon. The incidents con-
nected with this case were of such pc
culiar atrocity that the malefactor was
condemned to be led to the gallows by
the public executioner, and, after suffer
ing death, his body was to be burned to
ashes.
Nor was this all: During these ages
of eccentric legislation in France, ami
mails were subject to spiritual censures
as well as to penal sentences. In 1920
the Bishop of Laon communicated a
swarm of troublesome caterpillars,-
employing the same terms in the per
formance of the Office that the Council OF
Rheims had used, in the proceeding
year, to denounce priests who indulged
in the sin of matrimony. In 1916, ir
, response to the entreaties of the inhabi-
tants of Villenoxe, the Courts of Troye.
admonished the totally-depraved cater
pillars which infected that district, raw
aging the fields and impoverishing the
f people, that, if they did not take them
selves off within six days, they would
be declared "accursed and excommuni
Gated" Provokingly enough, we arr
} left without hint as to how the cater
| pillars demeaned themselves under tn,
threat of the curse of the church"