Dealings With The Dead Volume II Part 29

He continued to masticate his chop, and sip his ale, in silence, without lifting his eyes from the table, until a melon seed, sportively snapped, from between the thumb and finger of one of the gentlemen, at the opposite table, struck him upon the right ear. His eye was instantly upon the aggressor; and his ready intelligence gathered, from the illy suppressed merriment of the party, that this petty impertinence was intentional.

The stranger stooped, and picked up the melon seed, and a scarcely perceptible smile pa.s.sed over his features, as he carefully wrapped up the seed, in a piece of paper, and placed it in his pocket. This singular procedure, with their preconceived impressions of their customer, somewhat elevated, as they were, by the wine they had partaken, capsized their gravity entirely, and a burst of irresistible laughter proceeded from the group.

Unmoved by this rudeness, the stranger continued to finish his frugal repast, in quiet, until another melon seed, from the same hand, struck him, upon the right elbow. This also, to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of the other party, he picked from the floor, and carefully deposited with the first.

Amidst shouts of laughter, a third melon seed was, soon after, discharged, which hit him, upon the left breast. This also he, very deliberately took from the floor, and deposited with the other two.

As he rose, and was engaged in paying for his repast, the gayety of these sporting gentlemen became slightly subdued. It was not easy to account for this. Lavater would not have been able to detect the slightest evidence of irritation or resentment, upon the features of the stranger. He seemed a little taller, to be sure, and the carriage of his head might have appeared to them rather more erect. He walked to the table, at which they were sitting, and with that air of dignified calmness, which is a thousand times more terrible than wrath, drew a card from his pocket, and presented it, with perfect civility, to the offender, who could do no less than offer his own, in return. While the stranger unclosed his surtout, to take the card from his pocket, they had a glance at the undress coat of a military man. The card disclosed his rank, and a brief inquiry at the bar was sufficient for the rest. He was a captain, whom ill health and long service had ent.i.tled to half pay. In earlier life he had been engaged in several affairs of honor, and, in the dialect of the fancy, was a dead shot.

The next morning a note arrived at the aggressor's residence, containing a challenge, in form, and one only of the melon seeds. The truth then flashed before the challenged party--it was the challenger's intention to make three bites at this cherry, three separate affairs out of this unwarrantable frolic! The challenge was accepted, and the challenged party, in deference to the challenger's reputed skill with the pistol, had half decided upon the small sword; but his friends, who were on the alert, soon discovered, that the captain, who had risen by his merit, had, in the earlier days of his necessity, gained his bread, as an accomplished instructor, in the use of that very weapon. They met and fired, alternately, by lot; the young man had elected this mode, thinking he might win the first fire--he did--fired, and missed his opponent. The captain levelled his pistol and fired--the ball pa.s.sed through the flap of the right ear, and grazed the bone; and, as the wounded man involuntarily put his hand to the place, he remembered that it was on the right ear of his antagonist, that the first melon seed had fallen. Here ended the first lesson. A month had pa.s.sed. His friends cherished the hope, that he would hear nothing more from the captain, when another note--a challenge of course--and another of those accursed melon seeds arrived, with the captain's apology, on the score of ill-health, for not sending it before.

Again they met--fired simultaneously, and the captain, who was unhurt, shattered the right elbow of his antagonist--the very point upon which he had been struck by the second melon seed: and here ended the second lesson. There was something awfully impressive, in the _modus operandi_, and exquisite skill of this antagonist. The third melon seed was still in his possession, and the aggressor had not forgotten, that it had struck the unoffending gentleman, upon the left breast! A month had past--another--and another, of terrible suspense; but nothing was heard from the captain. Intelligence had been received, that he was confined to his lodgings, by illness. At length, the gentleman who had been his second, in the former duels, once more presented himself, and tendered another note, which, as the recipient perceived, on taking it, contained the last of the melon seeds. The note was superscribed in the captain's well known hand, but it was the writing evidently of one, who wrote _deficiente manu_. There was an unusual solemnity also, in the manner of him, who delivered it. The seal was broken, and there was the melon seed, in a blank envelope--"And what, sir, am I to understand by this?"--"You will understand, sir, that my friend forgives you--he is dead."

No. CL.

A curious story of vicarious hanging is referred to, by several of the earlier historians, of New England. The readers of Hudibras will remember the following pa.s.sage, Part ii. 407--

"Justice gives sentence, many times, On one man for another's crimes.

Our brethren of New England use Choice malefactors to excuse, And hang the guiltless in their stead, Of whom the churches have less need: As lately 't happen'd:--in a town There liv'd a cobbler, and but one, That out of doctrine could cut use, And mend men's lives, as well as shoes.

This precious brother having slain, In times of peace, an Indian, Not out of malice, but mere zeal, Because he was an infidel; The mighty Tottipottymoy Sent to our ciders an envoy; Complaining sorely of the breach Of league, held forth by brother Patch, Against the articles in force Between both churches, his and ours, For which he crav'd the saints to render Into his hands, or hang th' offender: But they, maturely having weigh'd They had no more but him o' the trade, A man that served them, in a double Capacity, to teach and cobble, Resolved to spare him; yet to do The Indian Hoghan Moghan too Impartial Justice, in his stead did Hang an old weaver, that was bedrid."

This is not altogether the sheer _poetica licentia_, that common readers may suppose it to be. Hubbard, Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll. xv. 77, gives the following version, after having spoken of the theft--"the company, as some report pretended, in way of satisfaction, to punish him, that did the theft, but in his stead, hanged a poor, decrepit, old man, that was unserviceable to the company, and burthensome to keep alive, which was the ground of the story, with which the merry gentleman, that wrote the poem, called Hudibras, did, in his poetical fancy, make so much sport. Yet the inhabitants of Plymouth tell the story much otherwise, as if the person hanged was really guilty of stealing, as may be were many of the rest, and if they were driven by necessity to content the Indians, at that time to do justice, there were some of Mr. Weston's company living, it is possible it might be executed not on him that most deserved, but on him that could be best spared, or was not likely to live long, if let alone."

Morton published his English Canaan, in 1637, and relates the story Part iii. ch. iv. p. 108, but he states, that it was a proposal only, which was very well received, but being opposed by one person, "they hanged up the real offender."

As the condemned draw nigh unto death--the scaffold--the gibbet--it would be natural to suppose, that every avenue to the heart would be effectually closed, against the entrance of all impressions, but those of terrible solemnity; yet no common truth is more clearly established, than that ill-timed levity, vanity, pride, and an almost inexplicable pleasure, arising from a consciousness of being the observed of all observers, have been exhibited, by men, on their way to the scaffold, and even with the halter about their necks.

The story is well worn out, of the wretched man, who, observing the crowd eagerly rushing before him, on his way to the gallows, exclaimed, "gentlemen, why so fast--there can be no sport, till I come!"

In Jesse's memoirs of George Selwyn, i. 345, it is stated, that John Wisket, who committed a most atrocious burglary, in 1763, the evidence of which was perfectly clear and conclusive, insisted upon wearing a large white c.o.c.kade, on the scaffold, as a token of his innocence, and was swung off, bearing that significant appendage.

In the same volume, page 117, it is said of the famous Lord Lovat, that, in Scotland, a story is current, that, when upon his way to the Tower, after his condemnation, an old woman thrust her head into the window of the coach, which conveyed him, and exclaimed--"_You old rascal, I begin to think you will be hung at last_." To which he instantly replied--"_You old b----h, I begin to think I shall_."

In Walpole's letters to Mann, 163, a very interesting and curious account may be found, of the execution of the Lords Kilmarnock, and Balmarino.

These Lords, with the Lord Cromartie, who was pardoned, were engaged, on the side of the Pretender, in the rebellion of 1745. "Just before they came out of the Tower, Lord Balmarino drank a b.u.mper to King James's health. As the clock struck ten, they came forth, on foot, Lord Kilmarnock all in black, his hair unpowdered, in a bag, supported by Forster, the great Presbyterian, and by Mr. Home, a young clergyman, his friend. Lord Balmarino followed, alone, in a blue coat, turned up with red, _his rebellious regimentals_, a flannel waistcoat, and his shroud beneath, the hea.r.s.es following. They were conducted to a house near the scaffold; the room forwards had benches for the spectators; in the second was Lord Kilmarnock; and in the third backwards Lord Balmarino--all three chambers hung with black. Here they parted! Balmarino embraced the other, and said--'My lord, I wish I could suffer for both.'"

When Kilmarnock came to the scaffold, continues Walpole,--"He then took off his bag, coat, and waistcoat, with great composure, and, after some trouble, put on a napkin cap, and then several times tried the block, the executioner, who was in white, with a white ap.r.o.n, out of tenderness concealing the axe behind himself. At last the Earl knelt down, with a visible unwillingness to depart, and, after five minutes, dropped his handkerchief, the signal, and his head was cut off at once, only hanging by a bit of skin, and was received in a scarlet cloth, by four undertakers' men kneeling, who wrapped it up, and put it into the coffin with the body; orders having been given not to expose the heads, as used to be the custom. The scaffold was immediately new strewed with sawdust, the block new covered, the executioner new dressed, and a new axe brought.

Then came old Balmarino, treading with the air of a general. As soon as he mounted the scaffold, he read the inscription on his coffin, as he did again afterwards: he then surveyed the spectators, who were in amazing numbers, even upon masts of ships in the river; and, pulling out his spectacles, read a treasonable speech, which he delivered to the sheriff, and said the young Pretender was so sweet a prince, that flesh and blood could not resist following him; and, lying down to try the block, he said--'if I had a thousand lives I would lay them all down here in the same cause.' He said, if he had not taken the sacrament the day before, he would have knocked down Williamson, the Lieutenant of the Tower, for his ill usage of him. He took the axe and felt of it, and asked the headsman how many blows he had given Lord Kilmarnock, and gave him two guineas. Then he went to the corner of the scaffold, and called very loud to the Warder, to give him his periwig, which he took off, and put on a night cap of Scotch plaid, and then pulled off his coat and waistcoat and lay down; but being told he was on the wrong side, vaulted round, and immediately gave the sign, by tossing up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for battle. He received three blows, but the first certainly took away sensation. As he was on his way to the place of execution, seeing every window open, and the roofs covered with spectators--'Look, look,' he cried, 'see how they are piled up like rotten oranges!'"

Following the English custom, the clergymen of Boston were in the habit, formerly, of preaching to those, who were under sentence of death. I have before me, while I write, the following ma.n.u.script memoranda of Dr. Andrew Eliot--"1746, July 24. Thursday lecture preached by Dr. Sewall to three poor malefactors, who were executed P. M." "1747, Oct. 8. Went to Cambridge to attend Eliza Wakefield, this day executed. Mr. Grady began with prayer. Mr. Appleton preached and prayed." There is a printed sermon, preached by Dr. Andrew Eliot, on the Lords' day before the execution of Levi Ames, who was hung for burglary Oct. 21, 1773. Ames was present, and the sermon was preached, by his particular request. The desire of distinction dies hard, even in the hearts of malefactors.

Dr. Andrew Eliot was a man of excellent sense, and disapproved of the practice, then in vogue, of lionizing burglars and murderers, of which, few, at the present day, I believe, have any just conception. For their edification I subjoin a portion of a ma.n.u.script note, in the hand writing of the late Dr. Ephraim Eliot, appended to the last page of the sermon, delivered by his father. "Levi Ames was a noted offender--though a young man, he had gone through all the routine of punishment; and there was now another indictment against him, where there was positive proof, in addition to his own confession. He was tried and condemned, for breaking into the house of Martin Bicker, in Dock Square. His condemnation excited extraordinary sympathy. _He was every Sabbath carried through the streets with chains about his ankles and handcuffed, in custody of the Sheriff's officers and constables, to some public meeting, attended by an innumerable company of boys, women and men._ Nothing was talked of but Levi Ames. The ministers were successively employed in delivering occasional discourses. Stillman improved the opportunity several times, and absolutely persuaded the fellow, that he was to step from the cart into Heaven."

It is quite surprising, that our fathers should have suffered this interesting burglar--"_misguided_" of course--to be hung by the neck, till he was dead. When an individual, as sanguine, as Dr. Stillman appears to have been, in regard to Levi Ames, remarked of a notorious burglar, a few days after his execution, that he had certainly been _born again_, an incredulous bystander observed, that he was sorry to hear it, for some dwelling-house or store would surely be broken open before morning.

No. CLI.

We are sufficiently acquainted with the Catholic practice of roasting heretics--that of boiling thieves and other offenders is less generally known. _Caldariis decoquere_, to boil them in cauldrons, was a punishment, inflicted in the middle ages, on thieves, false coiners, and others. In 1532, seventeen persons, in the family of the Bishop of Rochester, were poisoned by Rouse, a cook; the offence was, in consequence, made treason, by 23 Henry VIII., punishable, by boiling to death. Margaret Davie was boiled to death, for the like crime, in 1541. Quite a number of Roman ladies, in the year 331 B. C., formed a poisoning society, or club; and adopted this quiet mode of divorcing themselves from their husbands: seventy of the sisterhood were denounced, by a slave, to the consul, Fabius Maximus, who ordered them to be executed. None of these ladies were boiled.

Boiling the dead has been very customary, after beheading or hanging, and drawing, and quartering, whenever the criminal was sentenced to be hung afterwards, in chains. Thus father Strype--"1554.--Sir Thomas Wyatt's fatal day was come, being the 11th of April, when, between nine and ten of the clock, aforenoon, on Tower Hill, he was beheaded; and, by eleven of the clock, he was quartered on the scaffold, and his bowels and members burnt beside the scaffold; and, a car and basket being at hand, the four quarters and the head were put into the basket, and conveyed to Newgate, to be parboiled." One more quotation from Strype--"1557.--May 28th, was Thomas Stafford beheaded on Tower Hill, by nine of the clock, Mr. Wode being his ghostly father; and, after, three more, viz., Stowel, Proctor, and Bradford were drawn from the Tower, through London, unto Tyburn, and there hanged and quartered: and, the morrow after, was Stafford quartered, and his quarters hanged on a car, and carried to Newgate to boil."

How very ingenious we have been, since the days of Cain, in torturing one another! Boiling and roasting are not to be thought of. The Turkish bowstring will never be adopted here, nor the Chinese drop, nor their mode of capital punishment, in which the criminal, having been stripped naked, is so confined, that he can scarcely move a muscle, and, being smeared with honey, is exposed to myriads of insects, and thus left to perish.

Crucifixion will never be popular in Ma.s.sachusetts, though quite common among the Syrians, Egyptians, Persians, Africans, Greeks, Romans, and Jews. Starving to death, sawing in twain, and rending asunder, by strong horses, have all been tried, but are not much approved of, by the moderns.

The rack may answer well enough, in Catholic countries, but, in this quarter, there is a strong prejudice against it. Exposure to wild beasts is objectionable, for two reasons; one of these reasons resembles the first of twenty-four, offered to the Queen of Hungary, for not ringing the bells upon her arrival,--there were no bells in the village--we have no wild beasts. The second reason is quite germain--man is savage enough, without any foreign a.s.sistance. Burying alive, though it has been employed, as a punishment, in other countries, is, literally, too much for flesh and blood; and, I am happy to say, there is not a s.e.xton in this city, who would, knowingly, be a party to such a barbarous proceeding.

Death has been produced, by preventing sleep, as a mode of punishment.

Impaling, and flaying alive, tearing to pieces with red hot pincers, casting headlong from high rocks, eviscerating the bowels, firing the criminals from the mouths of canons, and pressing them slowly to death, by weights, gradually increased, upon the breast, the _peine forte et dure_, are very much out of fashion; though one and all have been frequently employed, in other times. There is a wheel of fashion, as well as a wheel of fortune, in the course of whose revolutions, some of these obsolete modes of capital punishment may come round again, like polygon porcelain, and antiquated chair-backs. Should our legislature think proper to revive the practice, in capital cases, of heading up the criminal in a barrel, filled with nails, driven inward, a sort of inverted _cheval de frize_, and rolling him down hill, I have often thought the more elevated corner of our Common would be an admirable spot for the commencement of the execution, were it not for interrupting the practice of coasting, during the winter; by which several innocent persons, in no way parties to the process, have been very nearly executed already.

Shooting is apt to be performed, in a bungling manner. Hanging by the heels, till the criminal is dead, is very objectionable, and requires too much time. The mode adopted here and in England, and also in some other countries, of hanging by the neck, is, in no respect agreeable, even if the operator be a skilful man; and, if not, it is highly offensive. The rope is sometimes too long, and the victim touches the ground--it is too frail, and breaks, and the odious act must be performed again--or the noose is unskilfully adjusted, the neck is not broken, and the struggles are terrible.

The sword, in a Turkish hand, performs the work well. It was used in France. Charles Henry Sanson, the hereditary executioner, on the third of March, 1792, presented a memorial to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, in which he objected to decollation, and stated that he had but two swords; that they became dull immediately; and were wholly insufficient, when there were many to be executed, at one time. Monsieur Sanson knew nothing then of that delightful instrument, which, not long afterward, became a mere plaything, in his hands.

Stoning to death and flaying alive have been employed, occasionally, since the days of Stephen and Bartholomew. The axe, so much in vogue, formerly, in England, was a ruffianly instrument, often mangling the victim, in a horrible manner.

After all, there is nothing like the guillotine; and, should it ever be thought expedient to erect one here, I should recommend, for a location, the knoll, near the fountain, on our Common, which would enable a very large concourse of men, women, and children, to witness the performances of both, at the same moment.

The very best account of the guillotine, that I have ever met with, is contained in the London Quarterly Review, vol. lxxiii. page 235. It is commonly supposed, that this instrument was invented by Dr. Guillotin, whose name it bears. It has been frequently a.s.serted, that Dr. Guillotin was one of the earliest, who fell victims to its terrible agency. It has been still more generally believed, that this awfully efficient machine was conceived in sin and begotten in iniquity, or in other words, that its original contrivers were moved, by the spirit of cruelty. All these conjectures are unfounded.

The guillotine, before its employment, in France, was well known in England, under the name of the Halifax gibbet. A copy of a print, by John Doyle, bearing date 1650, and representing the instrument, may be found, in the work, to which I have, just now, referred. Pennant, in his Tour, vol. iii. page 365, affirms, that he saw one of the same kind, "in a room, under the Parliament house, at Edinburgh, where it was introduced by the Regent, Morton, who took a model of it, as he pa.s.sed through Halifax, and, at length, suffered by it, himself."

The writer in the London Quarterly, puts the question of invention at rest, by exhibiting, on page 258, a copy of an engraving, by Henry Aldgrave, bearing date 1553, representing the death of t.i.tus Manlius, under the operation of "an instrument, identical with the guillotine."

During the revolution, Dr. Guillotin was committed to prison, from which he was released, after a tedious confinement. He died in his bed, at Paris, an obscure and inoffensive, old man; deeply deploring, to the day of his decease, the a.s.sociation of his name, with this terrible instrument--an instrument, which he attempted to introduce, in good faith, and with a merciful design, but which had been employed by the devils incarnate of the revolution, for the purposes of reckless and indiscriminating carnage.

Dr. Guillotin was a weak, consequential, well-meaning man, willing to mount any hobby, that would lift him from the ground. He is described, in the _Portraits des Personnes celebres_, 1796, as a simple busybody, meddling with everything, _a tort et a travers_, and being both mischievous and ridiculous.

He had sundry benevolent visions, in regard to capital punishment, and the suppression, _by legal enactment_, of the _sentiment_ of prejudice, against the families of persons, executed for crime! Among the members of the faculty, in every large city, there are commonly two or three, at least, exhibiting striking points of resemblance to Dr. Guillotin. In urging the merits of this machine, upon merciful considerations, his integrity was unimpeachable. He considered hanging a barbarous and cruel punishment; and, by the zeal and simplicity of his arguments, produced, even upon so grave a topic, universal laughter, in the const.i.tuent a.s.sembly--having represented hanging, as a tedious and painful process, he exclaimed, "Now, with my machine, _Je vous sauter le tete_, I strike off your head, in the twinkling of an eye, and you never feel it."

No. CLII.

The Sansons, hereditary executioners, in Paris, were gentlemen. In 1684, Carlier, executioner of Paris, was dismissed. His successor was Charles Sanson a lieutenant in the army, born in Abbeville, in Picardy, and a relative of Nicholas Sanson, the celebrated geographer. Charles Sanson married the daughter of the executioner of Normandy, and hence a long line of ill.u.s.trious executioners. Charles died in 1695; and was succeeded by his son Charles.

Charles Sanson, the second, was succeeded by his son, Charles John Baptiste, who died Aug. 4, 1778, when his son Charles Henry was appointed in his place; and, in 1795, retired on a pension. By his hand, with the a.s.sistance of two of his brothers, the King, Louis XVI. was guillotined.

This Charles Henry had two sons. His eldest, the heir-apparent to the guillotine, was killed, by a fall from the scaffold, while holding forth the head of a man, executed for the forgery of a.s.signats. Henry, the younger son of Charles Henry, therefore became his successor, at the time of his retirement, in 1795. To fill this office, he gave up his military rank, as captain of artillery. He died Aug. 18, 1840. He was an elector, and had a taste for music and literature. He was succeeded by his son, Henry Clement, Dec. 1, 1840. These particulars will be found on page 27 of _Recherches Historiques et Physiologiques, sur la Guillotine, &c._, par M.

Louis du Bois. Paris, 1843. Monsieur du Bois informs us, that all these Sansons were very worthy men, and that the present official possesses a fine figure, features stamped with n.o.bility, and an expression sweet and attractive. How very little all this quadrates with our popular impressions of the common hangman!