Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-11-18
CRIMINAL BEASTS.
A CURIOUS STUDY OF MANS ZEAL
#INGS WITH THE BRuTES,

..~.# --- sSSs .
Time Used to Be When Magistrates Sol
EMMY Heard Arguments Over the Guilt
or Innocence of a Bird or a Lizard or
an Insect-An Interesting Book.
"A book which will delight all lovers of the
curious and grotesque, as we'll as provide
food for serious thought, has appeared at
Naples Under the title of Criminal Beasts, -
Its author. Signor d'Addosio, describes it
as a mere attempt to deal with the subject.
He prepared it without assistance, and ad.
mits that it only imperfectly covers the
ground he has outlined. Yet it presents a
perfectly astounding array of facts and
veracious incidents relating to the sup
posed amenability Of brutes to the civil law.
The reader is first reminded that the
ancient laws of the Egyptians, Indians,
Persians, Hebrews and Greeks attributed
rights and duties to animals, and decided
that equally with men animals were sub
1ect to praise or blame, reward or punish
ment. For this reason severe penalties
were instituted against men who took the
life of animals, maltreated or hurt them
without reason, and equally severe penal
ties were awarded to animals for acts hurt
full to the lives or property of men. Little
by little these laws, which fourished
when mankind was still childlike and in
genuous, fell into disuse as the human
race became aware of it's immense supe-
riority, and finally the cold and reasoning
Roman denied to animals any rights and
dutles,' and pronounced them to be void
OF. conscience or personality, without,
however, deciding that they were mere
machines.
Then came a reaction. The Middle
Ages, distinguished for the predominance
OF imagination over reason, leaped back at
a bound to superstition and barbarism.
and all rights and duties were restored to
animals, together with such responsibility
that when they committed any act hurtful
to man or his works they were summoned
as criminals and subjected to the rigor of
the law. In the Sixteenth century this
~humanizing OF animals began again to de-
crease, until i'll the Seventeenth century it
entirely disappeared.
After this historical sketch, Signor
d'Addosioc considers the advance of science
in relation to the animal kingdom. The
theory of evolution, which ascribes to
brutes the rudiments of human attributes.
is carefully reviewed. The modern school
Of science, says the author, declares that.
in common with mankind, animals possess
reason will, conscience, language, senti-
ments and s~ociability, and that the whole
difference lies in the more or less in quar-
tity and not in quality. The modern penal
school now begins to ask: "What is
crime?' and itself replies that crime is a
natural phenomenon, common to plants
and animals equally with men. Now,
slyly observes Signor d'Addosio, if this
theory be carried out to it's logical conse-
quence, it would result that an animal
which sinned against human society ought
to be punished for it's crime, as it was in
the Middle Ages.
The curious lawsuits which were in the
Middle Ages so often instituted against
members of the animal kingdom were
sometimes penal, sometimes civil. The
former were directed against animals that
had destroyed human life, or resorted to
magic and diabolical works, when the &C
cused were put in prison, tried, sentenced,
condemned and executed according to all
the formalities of lawsuits against human
CRIMINALS. The civil suits were directed
against such animals or insects as attacked
and damaged corn fields, vineyards, Or
chards, meadows and so on, or in any other
way were hurtful to the possessions of
men.
When prayers n professions had been
resorted to in vain an appeal was made to
the local ecclesiastical judge, who cited the
destroyers to appear before him and nomi-
mated advocates for and against. The in
habitants of the damaged district did the
same, II the trial took place with solem-
nifty and with all the tedious details and
long winded arguments Of medieval JUS
tice and jurists. The sentence generally
condemned the accused insects or animals
to leave the invaded territory within a
given date, on pain of curses and excom-
munication, and almost always assigned
some uncultivated place where they could
retire and live as they pleased. Often when
the creatures had been deaf to the sentence
a new trial and verdict were undertaken to
carry out the communication.
There are given in the book, on the au-
thority of official records, accounts of a
vast number of trials of horses, cattle,
fowls, dogs, goats, snakes, leeches, etc.
The majority of cases are taken from the
records of French courts, though Italy
furnishes a goodly number. In Naples
itself, for example, an ass was solemnly
tried and condemned to be burned to
death, a proceeding which called forth a
scoffing poem from a wit of the period.
Civil suits were generally directed against
vermin, such as caterpillars, grubs, leeches.
~locusts, rats, mice and so on.
In 1851 a suit was instituted against the
leeches which infested the ponds in the
neighborhood of Berne, in Switzerland, and
the bishop of Lausanne, in his instructions
to his parish priests of Berne, which in
structions were solemnly approved of by
the professors of the University of Heidel-
burg, mentioned that it would be advisa-
BILE to procure ''some of the aquatic worms
and place them before the magistrates"
This was done, and the leeches, both those
present and those absent, were ordered to
leave the places they had so boldly infested
within three days on pain of mourning the
malediction of God.-New York Tribune.
About Airing Beds. -
In airing beds the most thorough careful
housekeeper often errs through her very
thoroughness. She will shake the sheets,
blankets, etc., and hang them out of the
-