The Opelousas courier., 1905-07-08
SOME r BOOKS.
Authors Who Have Suffered Terrible
Deaths Because Of Their Writings.

Authors Who Have Suffered Terrible
Deaths Because Of Their Writings.
A young German officer, who recent
" wrote q novel dealing with the
scandals of army life, was promptly
deprived of his commission by MS
offended Kaiser, was afterwards I'M,
prisoned in a fortress, and has now,
on his release, a score Or so OF dueL:
to fight: in one or the other OF Wnlch
he is pretty certain to lose his life,
says the St. Louis Globe-DemocTat.
In times gone by, however, it might
easily have gone even harder with
him:
For instance, SO lately as 1889, an
Austrian pamphleteer naflied Tekll
was shot at Gratz for writing and pub
fishing a book rejecting on the good
faith of Count buo1, the foreign min
lister. The work was published at .
o'clock in the morning, at 10 1t was
| ordered to be suppressed, half an houT
later the unhappy author was being
tried by dTlmhhad eourt-martial, and
before neon he had been pronounced
guilty and executed.
Napoleon gave equally short shritt
to writer's who offended him, shooting
! some and hanging others with scarce,
" even tie form of trial. One Of the
most notorious of these judicial MUIR
ders was that perpetrated at the eX-
pense OF poor Palm, a Nurnberg pub
Usher, who was Shot because he re-
fused to give up the name OF the au'
thor Of & book attacking the usurper'
Later the BourbOns had troublesome
authors quietly "~removed' by hired
assassins. After this fashion died the
gifted Paul Courier, whose foul MUIR
der, OH April 10, 1925, aroused to Jury
all lovers of liberty,
Edward Kelly, the friend and cnam-
piOn Of DR.. Dee, had mis- ears cut on
at Manchester for writing in defense
Of that notorious magician.
Daniel Defoe narrowly escaped a
similar fare for his Short Way with
the Dissenters;" and, as it was, he
was three lIDltS SlOOu Ii I'm i1iOh
besides suffering all the horrors then
incidental to a long Imprisonment IN
Newgate.
Urban Grand1er. because he offend
ed the mighty Richelieu in a book en-
titled The Shoemaker of Loudun,'
was burned alive.
Simon NORM, in 1C47, published at
Paris a little work called Thoughts
For 50 doing he was sentenced to per
form public penance in his shirt. with
a rope round his neck and a torch in
his hand. Afterward he and his boob
were burned together and the ashes
thrown into the air.
The similar punishment meted out
to Servetus at Geneva, because OF his
book "On the Restitution of Christian:
ity," is historical. By a refinement OF
cruelty the brow Of the unhappy au-
thor was crowdned with a crown OF
straw sprinkled with birthstone and
new, moist fagots were purposely
used in order to prolong his suffer
ings.
Antonius Pa1earius, an Italian au-
thor of the sixteenth century, had the
audacity to write a book attacking
the 1nquisition. He was sentenced to
be hung, strangled, and burnt o
dane Bruno, the friend of Sir Philip
Sidney, was punished in like manner
for having written a book entitled
The Expulsion Of the Triumphing
Beast"
A sorry fate befell John Williams,
who foolishly sent two samples OF
spring poetry to King James l.
For safety, the unhappy poet en-
closed the verses in an iron box, II
James, who always feared assassina-
ton, jumped to the conclusion that
the latter contained some sort OF an
Internal machine.
When the real nature of the con-
tents came to light, the timorous
arch and his counsellors became the
laughing stock of England; and
James, in revenge, caused the unfor-
tunate Williams to be hanged, drawn.
and CHARTERED.