The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-04-13
REVOLVING CRUELTY.
T0Rturing Means Formerly Used In
England 10 Reform
Criminals.

We have become squeamish about
punishments. We are humanitarians.
But we have taken long time to ar
rive at our present attitude. If you
want to know how cruel we have been,
you need only glance at curious book
by William Andrews, which has just
been published. Mr.. Andrews. in the
course OF some 300 pages. deals with
over score of different punishments,
beginning with hanging in various
forms. We still cling to hanging as the
final award of human wickedness, al.
though every debating society from
Lands End to John O'Groat's has been
discussing Should Capital Punishment
Be Abolished?" these many years. But
the great number of the punishments
enumerated by Mr.. Andrews have van
ished-most of them slowly. Could you
fancy our pressing prisoner to death?
And yet in 1741 Baron Carter inflicted
that punishment at the Cambridge
assizes. In France, again, drowning
was a capital punishment SO late as
1898. The last case of burning to death
was that of woman called Murphy, in
1879, the law not being repealed till
1890. Henry VIII. framed law for
boiling prisoners to death, but it was
too cruel to be allowed to go unrepealed
beyond 1547. Simon, Lord Lovat, was
the last person to be beheaded in this
country (April 9. 1747). The Scots in.
vented the maiden as early as 1881.
1t now rests in the museum of the
Society of Antiquaries at Edinburgh.
but the French still keep it in the shape
of the guillotine. Branding was still
in vogue during last century. The
pillory was not abolished until 1887.
Among the many instruments of tor
ture enumerated by Mr.. Andrews are
the finger pillory (recently illustrated
in the Sketch); the 'jougs-" used in
Scotland for claiming the culprit in a
sort of dog collar: the stocks (for the
feet, still to be found in several coun-
try villages. and whipping posts 1--WE
have reverted to these in the shape OF
the birch).
The ducking stool was used for scolds.
and specimens of it are to be seen still
at Plymouth. Kings Lynn, and Scar
borough: the elatestinstance of ducking
was at Leominster in 1909. Several
other instruments of torture were used
to silence shrews. Among the fine col
lection of George Eden Jarvis. of Dod-
Gington Hall, near Lincoln, which be-
longs to Elizabeth's S time, you may see
sample of what the Drank, or scold's
bride, was like. 1t was an iron frame.
work. like IA cage. Some specimens OF
it had an iron part in front which was
covered with spikes, over the mouth OF
the victim. If she attempted to move
her tongue in any wY whatever, that
''unruly member was sure to be Gagged.
With a Drank on her head, the shrew
was led through the streets. the jibe
and jest of every jostler. Another grim
relic in the possession of Mr.. Jarvis
iwhose collection. by the way, does not
seem to have been used by Mr.. An
drews) is a heavy iron headpiece. The
story connected with it relates to foul
murder; again the wife appears as the
sufferer and the husband as the tyrant.
\ man, familiarly known as Tom Otter,
but whose real name was Thomas Tenn
poral, cruelty killed his newly-made
bride on her wedding day. he having
married her at South Hykeham church
in the morning and taken her life be-
fore the sun went down. For this crime
he was hanged at Lincoln, March IA, 1906,
and afterward gibbeted on Saxilhy
moor, on the very spot where he had
committed the murder. This ghastiy
trophy is the headpiece of the irons in
which he swung, and SO worn is the
hook that held it to the chain that it
will no longer remain upright in its
original position, but has to be re-
versed. The gibbet that supported this
grewsome burden was blown down in
1850.
A worse instrument of torture will
be found in the Ludlow museum. 1t is
powerful screwing apparatus calcu-
lated to force the iron mask with tor
turing effect upon the brow of the VIC
tim. There are no eye holes, but cavi-
ties in their places. as though to allow
for the starting of the eyeballs under
violent pressure" 1t is said to have
been used to keep the head steady dur
ing the process of branding. Mr.. An
drews closes his interesting book with
Il description of riding the stang
London Sketch.
A Valuable Habit.
The Widower-Having been married
IS great help to man.
The Victim-But we were talking
about robberies.
Certainly! Marriage teaches a man
to hide his money when he goes to bed