The herald., 1897-01-04
NAN IN HAb|1OAL LIAR
The Administration of
Oaths in Courts
pERJURED TESTIMONY NOT H|NDERED
The Action Affects the Super.
stitious and Ignorant
THE WORLD GIVEN TO LYING
Methods Used in All Ages to Accentuate
Statements
The Cultivated and the Vicious On the 0ae
THE WORLD GIVEN TO LYING
Methods Used in All Ages to Accentuate
Statements
The Cultivated and the Vicious On the Oae
Plane
The Hindoo One Of the Most Accom-
plished Liars in the World. and the
Cause-Children Seize the Weap-
on of the Weak by Training.


Cause-Children Seize the Weap-
on of the Weak by Training.
It was Kant who said: "The highest
violation of the duty of man to himself,
considered as a moral being, Is depart
ure from truth, or lying. A lie is. as 1t
were the annihilation of the dignity Of
a man." Liars are the cause of all the
sins and crimes in the world" was the
Judgment of one of the most famous
teachers of philosophy and morality
among the ancient Stoics. and to speak
the truth is the duty imposed on man
kind by the Christian creed, as well as
by Buddha, Confucius or Zoraster.
But, Lord, Lord. how the world is
given to lying!" Social lies. professional
lies, political lies and malicious lies. not
forgetting the multitude of lies told from
the mere lust of lying, and because to
some people it is not only easier, but in
every way more reasonable for them
to tell lie than utter the truth.
Il doubt" said a prominent lawyer
the other day whether the administra-
ton of an oath has any effect in check
ing the habit of lying and preventing 6
perjury"
Inasmuch as several cases have re-
Gently loomed up in the courts where
most fragrant perjury was committed, it
does seem hopeless TO imagine that when
a person mounts the witness stand and,
while under oath, testifies to lie, the
ordinary work day world will be par
ticularly enamored of the truth.
With every nation and people there has
been some form Of words or gesture ap-
pealing to an unknown or invisible pow
er, by which additional sanction is given
to some statement or act. The more saw
age the nation or the more uneducated
the people, the more they value the oath
as means OF eliciting the truth. Chill
dren scarce out of the nursery, boys at
school, the street ganins. Will cross
their fingers or say, strike me dead" !"
or honest to Cod" or In some other way
make solemn appeal to give assurance
to the words they speak. Bands OF Grim
inals, whose daily lives are at war with
everything that is holy bind themselves
themselves together often by the most
fearful invocatiors.
In that powerful novel, Paul Clifford
Bulwer, with dramatic effect, INTRODUCES s
scene in which robber swears to Sc
cresy is to other matters murderer
who is about TO betray his associate. y
think. said the ruffian, after he had ad-
the oath, the devil himself
would not break that oath"
The Bible recites many instances Of
OATH taking among the Jews, and even
God himself is described as lifting up
his hand that he would bring the Israel
ties out Of bondage" etc. The circum-
stances, however, wherein these oaths
were made are possibly capable of exc
fari 10 tin,, y
son. scarcely capable of comparison
with even the ordinary oaths of Biblical
times.
The ancient Romans held the sancti-
ty of an oath above the fear OF laws and
punishment. Deeply impressive was their
treaty oath, when the "pater pa atratus," ="
holding the sacred flint that symbolized
the thunoerbolt, called upon Jove that
If, by public counsel or wicked fraud the
Romans should break the treaty first.
in that day o, Jove, smite thou the
Roman people as here toda y hall smitc
this swine, and smite the heavier as thou
art the stronger" SO saying. he slew tn
victim With the sacred stone and offered
sacrifice.
The Hindoo law surrounds an oath
with an immense amount Of formula and
denounces perjury in the most awful
terms, and Yet the world contains 10
other such symetrically accomplished
liars in the witness box as may be found
in lndia. In Macaulay's Essay on War
rem Hastings, the Eindoo is thus de-
scribed: "All those arts which are The
natural defense Of the weak are more
familiar to this subtle race than TO the
lonian Of the time of Juvenal, or TO the
jew of the Dark Ages. What the horns
are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the
tiger, what the sting is to the bee, what
beauty. according to the old Greek song
is TO woman, deceit Is to the Bengal5e.
Large promises, smooth excuses, elabor-
ate tissues of circumstantial falsehood.
chicanery, perjury and forgery are the
weapons, offensive and defer sive of tha
people of the Lower Ganges."
And so people, ground to the dust by
long centuries of oppression, are to some
extent, in their moral attributes, the
equiva ents of children in our own land.
1t is a matter of most ordinary obserVa-
tiou that children trained in ham
hazard way only, by negative instruc-
ton, and who are met at every turn with
all injunction mot to do this, and not to
do that" very speedily acquire the
weapon of the weak and become adept in
Justification.
The custom of administering the GA n
upon the Gospels commenced as early
as the year 52S, but there We're other
forms of oath 1t was often taken upon
the consecra ted wafer and also by touch
ing the corporate, or cloth which covered
the sacred elements. Hence the phra Sc,
corporal OATH" which is still often
heard, though the custom has long died
out
The different forms of oaths
are almost exhaustless, and their
end and aim in all ages has
been to bind men to some high
er degree of Veracity or of action than
would otherwise have been expected of
them. They have had their foundation
in the fact that man in a state of nature
does not habitually speak the truth. In
the evolution Of society they have no
doubt held a valuable place, and the
more ignorant and superstitious the peo-
pie are the more useful they appear ia
be At the present day an oath may
stilI hold in check the consciences of a
numerous class of persons who are nei-
tier truthful nor quite reckless; who
are minus the honesty which makes the
good mans oath superlluous, and who
will indeed lie with circumstance if not
restrained from perjury by the fear OF
being, according to the old English say
ing, once forsworn ever forlorn." "
With the highly cultivated or the en-
tirely vicious an oath is nothing II
viii not restrain railroad magnate or