St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1884-09-06


"In the glass when your uncle con-
fessed his crime. -PhitadelphiG Call.
Bugs and Beasts Before the Law.
On the 10th OF January, 1857, a sow
was convicted of murder, committed on
the person of an infant named Jehan
Martin, of Savigny, and sentenced to be
hanged. Her sick suczlings were also
included in the Indictment as accom-
plices; but Z" in default of any positive
proof that they had assisted in mangling
the deceased, they were restored to
their owner, on condition that he should
give bail for their appearance should
further evidence be forthcoming to
prove their completely in their mothers
crime" About month later, ''on the
Friday after the feast of the Puritica-
ton of the Virgin" the Stockings were
again brought before the court; and as
their owner. Jehan Bailly, declined to
be answerable for their future good
conduct, they were declared forfeited
to the noble damsel, katherine de Bar
nault, Lady of Savigny. Sometimes a
fine was imposed upon the owner of the
offending beast, as was the case with
Jehan Delalande and his wife. con-
demned on the 18th of April, 1899, by
the Abbey of Josaphat, near Charities,
to pay eighteen francs :" on account OF
the murder of child named Gillon,
aged five years and a half, or there
abouts, committed by porker, aged
three months, or thereabouts.' The
porker was changed and executed by
justice"
The records of medieval courts and
the chronicles of medieval cloisters are
full of examples That such cases usually
came under the jurisdiction of monas-
teres will not seem strange, when we
remember that these religious estab-
Iishments were great landholders, and
at one time owned nearly one-third of
all real estate in France. The fire.
quency with which pigs were adjudged
to death was owing in great measure to
the freedom with which they were per
mitted to run about the houses as well
as to their immense number. They be-
came serious nuisance, not only as en-
dangering the lives of children, but
also as generating and disseminating
diseases; so that many cities, like
Grenoble in the sixteenth century, au-
thorized the carnifex to sieze and STAY
thern whenever found at large.
But although pigs appear to have
been the principal culprits, other quad
rupeds were frequently called to answer
for their crimes. The judiciary
of the Cistercian Abbey of Beaupre, in
1899, sent bull to the gallows for hav-
ing ''killed with furiosity lad of four
teen or fifteen years of age;" and in
1889 the Carthusians at Dion caused a
horse to be condemned to death for
homicide. The magistrates of Bale, in
1874, sentenced a cock to be burned at
the stake for the heinous and
unnatural crime of laying an
egg. The nuf coquatri was sup
posed to be the product of a very
/ old cock and to furnish the most active
and effective ingredient of witch ONT
ment. When Matched by a serpent OF
by the sun, it brought forth a cock
atrice, which would hide in the roof OF
a house, and, with its baneful breath
and notwithstanding eye, destroy all
the inmates. Naturalists believed in
this fable as late as the eighteenth
century; and in 1910 the French savant
Lapeyronie read a paper before the
Academic DIES Sciences to prove that
the eggs attributed to cocks owe then
peculiar form 10 disease of the hen.
Animals, also, bore their full part OF
persecution during the Witchcraft de-
fusion. Pigs suffered most in this re-
spect, and were assumed to be pc.
culiarIy attractive to devils, and, there.
fore, particularly liable to diabolica
possession, as is evident from the legior
/ that went out of the tomb-hauntine
man and were permitted, at their OWL
request, to enter into the Gadarene herr
of swine. Indtld, the greatest thee
logical authority of tpg Middle Ages
Thomas Aquinas, bmGntained tina
beasts are but enA}odiments of evi
spirits. Chasseneea Quotes tSfs opinion
and adds that in communicating ami
Daals the anathema ltis aimed inferen
italy at the devil, u DO uses irrationa
creatures to our, etriment. y Still
more recently, a EIlnch Jesuit, Per
Bougpant set fqsbh he same view in
philosophie .3treatiif --Atla,atic Monthly
redwood apssts Il California ar
yearly diminiSRng, as this wood is in
creasingly used in building on The Pa
cific coast. The superstructure of mos
dwellings, in San Francisco is of red
wood, and the Friscans cherish the be
lief that it does not burn as readily a