EXECUTION.

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ing how to shape its course over so unknown a track, ]or as if frozen at its source by the severity of his ;brow. He shed but that one tear! but it was thewidow’s mite !—it was all he had ! 1

“ Lifting his eyes toward the magistrate, he mut-tered a request for the coup-de-grace. The magistratenodded to the executioner, and Boucher again heavedhis weapon. The weight of the iron and the force ofthe blood burst at once all the arteries of the stomach, :and crushed the vertebrae : the blood gushed in tor- jrents from his eyes, his mouth, his ears—-a gasp :convulsed his frame—a groan—one gasp more—andhe had ceased to suffer.”

The punishment of burning alive was but littleemployed in ancient times. Indeed it has rarelybeen resorted to at any period but for offences againstthe church. It was, however, recognised by our ownlaws, and the penalty was actually enforced as lateas the last century. But the ecclesiastical judgeswho presided in the courts of the inquisition seem tohave been the most determined advocates for thisspecies of punishment. The first essay of the inqui-sition at Seville showed with what a “ fell swoop ” itwould act. In the first six months 300 persons, jaccused of Judaising after conversion, were burnt, jtogether with the bones and images of many whom ideath had happily rescued from its dominion. In :the space of about forty years from its establishmentin Seville there had been burned in that diocese !more than 4000 individuals; 5000 houses remainedshut as after a pestilence, and consequently so manyfamilies had been exterminated.

The ecclesiastical judges appear to have exhaustedevery spefies of ingenuity in their attempts to addinfamy to the last extreme punishment of the law.The dress of the criminal was of a peculiar kind, andwas painted over with demons, who were placed overthe flames which were so soon to devour their mortal

frames. A criminal thus attired is representedabove, and the one placed by his side has recantedafter the passing of his sentence.

Scenes, at the description of which the flesh creeps

and the heart is horror-struck, were often presentedat these spectacles. The prisoners frequently resistedwith the greatest fury, struggling to free themselvesfrom the stake, while the incarnate fiends allowed thefire to fall away, or added fuel, as suited their pur-pose, to heighten or prolong their torments. Some-tinies the sufferers, in their lingering torments, madethe most pathetic appeals to the sympathy of thespectators, not for a release from their doom, hut amore speedy despatch of their agony. “ Of the fivepersons condemned,” says Mr. Wilcox, afterwardsbishop of Gloucester, in a letter to Dr. Burnet, speak-ing of an auto celebrated at Lisbon, on the 10th ofDecember, 1705, “ there were but four burnt. Twowere first strangled; two, a man and a woman, wereburnt alive. The execution was very cruel—thewoman was alive in the flames half an hour, and theman above an hour. The present king and his bro-ther were seated in a windovv so near as to be ad-dressed, in very moving terms, by the man while hewas burning. The favour he asked was only afew more faggots, yet he was unable to obtain it.Those who were burned here were seated on a benchtwelve feet high, fastened to a pole, and above sixfeet higher than the faggots. The wind being a littlefresh, the man’s back was perfectly wasted, and as he: turned himself his ribs opened before he left speak-I ing, the fire being recruited as it wasted, to keep it! just in the same degree of heat.”

Pressing to death was a frequent mode of executingcriminals in this country, till within the last fifty years.The following was the process resorted to by theexecutioners. The prisoner was stretched out onthe floor, and bound down with strong cords; a boardwas then laid on his chest, and weights were placedon it until the unfortunate sufferer expired. Whenpressing was resorted to as a means of extorting aconfession, or forcing a person to plead at his trial,the weights were added gradually, from fifty to aboutfive hundred pounds, and few prisoners were able toretain their senses if more were added. While theperson was undergoing the torture he generally com-plained of dreadful pain in various parts of the body,which was no doubt occasioned by the blood beingj violently expelled from the chest to the extremities.This punishment wms performed in London in theprison-yard of Newgate, which is still known as thePress-yard.

The punishment of walling up, as it was termedappears to have been very common in the middleages. As a mode of execution, it was principallyresorted to by the heads of conventual houses, asa punishment for the breach of the monastic vow.A small square chamber, or crypt, was usually formedin the cemetery of the ecclesiastical edifice, and inthis the criminal was placed, with a small loaf and apitcher of water. The aperture was then closed, anda gradual and painful death from hunger was theresult. For a poetical illustration of this species ofexecution, see Epic, p. 810.

Next to the ordinary process of hanging, the guil-lotine may be considered, in modern times, as themost common instrument for executing the last sen-tence of the law. Tens of thousands fell by the axeof the guillotine during the eventful era of the Frenchrevolution, and it is still the common mode of punish-ment in that country. With regard to its fitness forthis purpose it may justly be said, when human livesare to be sacrificed, it is the most humane instrument