The Failure of Punishment. were similarly treated if they broke bounds even during delirium. In the parish con stable's account for 1710, at Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire, is this entry : " Pd. Thomas Hawkins for whipping two people that had the smallpox, 8d.; " and in 17 1 4 : "Pd. for watching, victuals, and drink for Mary Mitchell, 2s. 6d. : pd. for whipping her, 4d." Yet the people who ordered and performed these atrocities were not destitute of humanity, but were gravely wanting in perception. If it were possible to abolish crime by se verity, then despots should be the greatest social purifiers. Henry VIII, in the twentysecond year of his reign, made poisoning treason, and the penalty, to be slowly boiled to death; but so ineffective was this that, in the first year of his son's reign, it was re pealed. We have had all kinds of maiming and lopping by law. Eyes, lips, ears, noses, hands, tongue, besides an unnameable one. When men were disemboweled and hanged for petit treason, women were disemboweled and burnt. To be hanged, drawn and quar tered was common. English women were burnt for witchcraft and for all kinds of trea son, whether poisoning a husband or defam ing the Queen, until the thirtieth year of George III. Next they were drawn and hanged; and now they are hanged only, and for murder alone. Who can say whether the repeal of this last might not be as wise as that of the previous ones? Had we the same moral courage as our ancestors, we should try it. We are aware that this proposal would be indignantly rejected by a large number. Many would bang us with that verse of Scripture, "Whoso sheddeth," etc. But they were the same sort who clamored for the burning of inoffensive women, on the ground that " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Those who believe in the amelio ration of harsh laws rather than in extreme punishments, who hold that men can be drawn into goodness, but can never be
455
driven, are forever encountered by these Biblical " bangs." We protest against yield ing to the narrow zealots who meet every suggestion for the improvement of social conditions in this age by a quotation from the Pentateuch. In addition to the maim ing and capital punishments named, and often for the most frivolous offences, such as stealing a sheep or killing a hare, there have been a host of excruciating tortures inflicted to extort confession. When Felton was threatened with torture, he said : " If I be put upon the rack, I will accuse you, my lord of Dorset, and none but yourself." Secretary Winwood wrote of a prisoner in James I's reign : " Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture; notwith standing, nothing could be drawn from him." Queen Elizabeth once tortured all the ser vants of the Duke of Norfolk, yet no lawyer found fault with this violation of the laws. As an able writer says : " The truth is, law yers are rarely philosophers; the history of the heart read only in statutes and law cases, presents the worst side of human nature; they are apt to consider men as wild beasts." Minor punishments were liberally pro vided by borough towns. These, like little independent states, while acknowledging a suzerain, made their own laws and admin istered their own punishments. Fear was the ruling feature of their systems, as in those of the higher powers. Now a single hanging creates a sensation. But in 1787, thirteen men and women were conveyed to the gallows at once at Worcester, not one of whom had committed murder. In the bor ough towns there were the tumbrel for such as pilfering millers, the ducking-stool for scolding wives, the brank for taming shrews, the cage or pillory, the skimmington, and the stocks for all. In the ballad, Titus Oates is made to say : — "See the rabble all round me in battle array, Against my wood castle their batteries play; With turnip granadoes the storm is begun."
