The daily Alaskan., 1916-12-26

Tongue Was Pluoked out-The Pen'
 aIty For High Treason.
 In these merciful days, when a man
 who publishes Q libel on the king es-
 capes with a few months imprison-
 ment, it seems scarcely credible that as late as 1870 the punishment ordain- | ed by the law for high treason was
 that the offender should be drawn on
 a hurdle to the place of execution and
 there should be hanged by the neck until he was dead; that then his head
 should be severed from his body, that
 his body be divided into four quarters and that his head and quarters be at ! the disposal of the crown.
 And this was by no means the worst | fate that might befall criminal in the
 so called good old days" as one John
 RooSe. a cook of Henry WILLS day. found to his cost. Roose was convict ed of the heinous crime of putting pol son in the broth intended for the fami'
 Iy of no less reverend a parsonage than l the bishop of Rochester. For such a | crime hanging, drawing and quarter l ing was too merciful a punishment
 Something lingering. with boiling oil, " or at least water, was decided to be the
 punishment that best fitted the crime. and with this object a special act of
 parliament was passed ordaining boil | ing alive as the punishment for this | felony. John ROOSe expiated his sins
 in cauldron of hot water, and few
 years later, in l542. one Margaret Davy
 met the same fate at Smlthfeld. i So gravely was the crime of poison ing regarded in these days of old that, | it is recorded. a Scotsman, one Thomas
 Bellie. and bis son were banished for life for administering poison to cou- pie of noisy hens belonging to a neigh bor
 These were indeed days when the
 man of violent temper or criminal tendencies must operate warily. If by any evil chance he came to blows and drew blood within the precincts of the kings palace he was inevitably con demned to lose his right hand, and a
 statute of Henry VIII. regulated the
 whole grewsOme ceremony, with all its runctiOnaries, from the surgeon who was to amputate the offending mem. Der. to the individual who used the
 searing irons. the yeoman of the scul. lery who made the irons red hot at
 his fire and the sergeant of the cellar
 who was provided with pot of red
 wine to give the same party after his
 hand is so stricken off and the stump scared"
 NutilatiOn was a favorite form of
 punishment in those good old days,
 following, no doubt, the Scriptural pen alty, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for q tooth" Thus the slanderer's
 tongue was pulled out, so that he could at least utter islander no more,
 and be who destroyed the sight of a
 one eyed man lost both his own eyes. By the Coventry act in the time of Charles II. any person who should ma liciUusly put out the eye, slit tue nose
 or disable any limb of another with in tent to maim or diSfgure him was to Day for tue wrong with his life. By another act the man who fought with weapUns in a church had one of his ears cut of. If he had already lost both ears, as many malefactor had. he was branded in the cheek with the l letter az"
 By an act of Queen Elizabeth's reign
 the forger was condemned to stand in the pillory. to have his ears cut off by the common hangman, his nostrils slit
 up and scared and to be imprisoned for life, and by statute of James ].
 an unfortunate bankrupt was nailed
 by an ear to the pilIory for two hours
 and then his ear was cut off.
 If an enterprising farmer were fool ish enough to send any of his live sheep out of the country he paid a terrible price for his rashness, for bis goods were forfeited, he was sont to fafI for twelve months, and on recov- crfng bis liberty bis left hand was cut |
 off in public market and nailed up there as a warning against the danger
 of illicit exports If he offended n sec ond time he paid for his daring with his life. If he set cOretous eyes on a
 neighbOrs sheep and annexed one of them he was unyercmoniously hanged i by the neck until he was dead. In deed. thousands of unfOrtunates paid
 with their lives for thefts much more 1 insignificant
 Burning alive was. of course, a com mon punishment for witchCraft for
 many d century, down to a couple Of hundred years ago, and many of the
 victims who were accused of selling
 their souls to the devil" were children under ten years of age.
 In 1726 Edward BurnwOrth, high
 wayman. refusing to plead. was loaded with boards and weights. For more ] than an hOu. he bore mass of metal
 weighing nearly four hundredweight'
 when human flesh could bear the agony
 no more, and he prayed to be put to | the bar again. He pleaded Not gull | ty." but was nevertheless found guilty