Evening star., 1934-07-23
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

The worlds largest law library now
is being assembled here.
Under the dome of the Library Of
Congress John T. Vance, jr., the law
librarian, is gathering choice items Of
the literature of Jurisprudence from
all over the earth to provide a more
substantial basis for American law
makers and law enforcers. He is es-
pecially interested, at present. in
rounding out the litera ture dealing
with the science of law and its socio-
logical ramifications. This involves
the codes of primitive races and an
cient times. Another field of en-
deavor is the building up of the
"rogue's gallery'-the reports of the
trials of the celebrated criminals in
history, from Blue Beard to AL Capone.
Torture Codes" Added to Collection.
Two grotesque volumes have just
been added to the ollection-repre-
senting the beginning and the ending
of Germany's torture Codes"
The first is the Carolina Consti-
tutio Criminals" a codification of
the criminal laws of the Holy Roman
Empire, printed in 1888. The second,
issued during the reign of Maria
Theresa more than 200 years later, is
practically a reprint of the first. But
it was the last official torture book" !"
Minute descriptions are given of the
approved methods of Misunderstanding,
racking, suspending by the fingers,
boiling, application of the Spanish
boot and subjecting a suspected
criminal to the extreme of torture,
the ''peine forte ct dure," or pressing
to death. All these procedures we're
highly standardized. to insure their
efficiency and protect" the victims
from sadistic interpretations of the
official torturers. The proper methods
are clarified both by text and illus
tration. And the torturers were
strictly prohibited from continuing
their lsbors an instant after the pur-
poSe-confession of the crime-had
been attained.
CuriouSly enough, these minutely
standardized torture practices denote
no love of cruelty on the part of the
the lawmakers of the Middle Ages
Quite the contrary, they might have
been defended, however illegally, as
measures of justice to suspected Grim
inals. The legislators were highly
Skeptical of the validity of any con-
viction based on evidence. No man
could be found guilty merely on the
testimony of others. however con-
vincing it might seem. Human mo-
tives were too diverse and incompre-
henSible, human eyes and ears too
fsllible. This position has been con-
frmed abundantly by later expert
mental findings of psychologists. But
If this position were accepted without
however logical and valid
it may be. there would be an end
of all systems of justice, for nobody
ever could be convincted of anything
The medieval legislators ruled that
nobody could be punished for a crime
without a confession. The criminal
was the only valid witness against
himself. Then they took appropriate
SIC 20 W dcculE lAiC bCobA1 Liz OA tAllc
one acceptable witness. 1t almost
always worked, but not invariably The
makers of the torture codes we're
sound en- certain aspects of their
psychology, but quite far afield on
certain other principles. Make the
torture great enough and anybody will
confess anything.
Pllhlic oninion WAS underooinr a
great change about the time the last
of these torture codes was promul-
gated, Courts were beginning to ac-
cept proofs based on teStimony-cer-
tainly in the face of logic, but with
a great gain in humanity. And there
was no loss in logic, for the method
they abandoned was just as illogical
as the one they adopted.
A complicating factor in the situa-