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. 326> THE LEADER. fNo. 818i Satp .w.v
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BOUSFIELD OJT CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. We hav...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Torture In India. Now That The Kingdom O...
whereupon they placed him . in the sun , "bent down his head , pinched his thighs with a split cane , and flogged him . with a whip until he consented to sell his ploughing bullocks and pay what was demanded . A cultivator paying Government £ 6 a-year was called upon by the headman of his village
for a present of twenty shillings . Having duly paid his r « nfc , and . " the season being- unfavourable , he declined to do so , and was immediately seized by the petty tyrant ' s followers , lifted off the ground by the ears , flogged with leathern thongs , and kept for two days in close confinement . On complaining afterwards to the superintendent of police he was * ' thrust away . "
Sometimes the cattle are shut up without food or water until their owner , in pity for their distress , pays what is due . At other times the owner himself is regularly blockaded in his owe house and all supplies cut off , until hunger and thirst reduce him to capitulate . There are also tortures of a more refined description . The most common is the "kittee . " This " kittee , " we are told , " is a Tery simple machine , consisting merely of two sticks tied together at one end , between which the fingers
are placed as in a lemon squeezer . " When the "kittee" is not forthcoming , a convenient substitute 13 found by compelling the victim to interlace his fingers , the ends being squeezed by the hand of a police officer , who occasionally introduces a little sand to obtain a firmer grasp , These tax-gatherers are wonderfully fertile in imagination . They have yet other means in , store for extorting from the " moneyloving limdW the few pence he still possesses after paying his land-tax . The close-handed
ungenerous man . will find himself laid on his backj with a heavy stone upon the pit of his stoniach ^ a stout cane placed a cross that , and on either end of the cane a policeman seated . To avoid sufFoeation , he reluctantly engages to sacrifice his little all . Sometimes chilly powder is blown into nis eyes ; or , yet more horrible , is- introduced through a straw into the penis or anus . These are the more usual modes of piofeeeding with , those who cannot , or will not , gratify the cupidity of the tax-gatherers . And yetrno Wat Tyler has arisen to make the
tyrants tremble for themselves . If it be asked why the sufferers do not complain to the police , the answer is obvious . The same officer discharges the duplex ; , functions of revenue and police , so that there is rea-lly no appeal . And were ifc otherwise , the police is so wretchedly corrupt that any complaint wtould . produce only an additional grievance . The police themselves are addicted to the use of tort-ure to a still greater exte nt in judicial than in fiscal cases . Equally vain would it be
to apply fop redress to the European collector , though a member of the highly-favoured Civil Service , and peculiarly approved by the magnates of Leadfenhall-street . Sometimes , indeed , an enterprising individual does venture to address his serene highness , bufc is invariably referred to the very superintendent of police against whom he is appealing . Or perhaps he petitions the sub-collector , who tells him that
his remedy is by . an action in a court for damages ; and sends him on to the prinoipal collector . This gentleman tears his petition in pieces , and promises thab the sub-collector shall inquire into his case ; after which nothing moro is ever thought of it . The European magistrates , in . point of fact , are numerically- insufficient for the duties assigned to them . For a territory comprising l & OOQ square miles , with a population of a million
ana a- natt , there may be no more than four ItffiS ° ° T * fot 1 tUe 72 ( > , 000 inhabitants pHyswalty , import © thattproper attention can W paidv , to , the , welfar * of tie people , from
whom , . besides , the European grandee usually holds himself magnificently aloof . In districts where the assessment is low , the application of torture is seldom or never known . The cultivators are there able to pay their rents without ruin to themselves , and the work of the Government officials is light and pleasant to both parties . Unfortunately , this is the rare exception , but the fact shows , that by the exercise of a just liberality this abomination anight be almost entirely removed from out the land . The police and revenue functions should likewise be made perfectly distinct , that the sufferer from extortion
might at least have some chance of redress . There is no doubt some difficulty to be apprehended for yet a brief space , until the natives become assured . that the European magistrates are in earnest as to their professed intention of putting au end to the use of torture . It is utterly absurd to suppose that the Government
was previously ignorant of its existence . Members of the Civil Service , military men , clergymen , and merchants , all agree in confessing their knowledge of the evil—and a guilty knowledge it must have been on the part of those who could have redressed the wrongs of their fellow-subjects . Some honourable
exceptions undoubtedly prevailed . So far back as 1840 , Mr . M . Lewin distinctly advised the authorities that torture was used in his district , but those great men hugged themselves in the belief that their dominion was for ever and that no prying eye would ever pierce the veil that enshrouded their selfishness .
. 326> The Leader. Fno. 818i Satp .W.V
. 326 > THE LEADER . fNo . 818 i Satp . w . v
Bousfield Ojt Capital Punishment. We Hav...
BOUSFIELD OJT CAPITAL PUNISHMENT . We have had many treatises on the expediency and moral effect of capital punishment . Edward Gibbon Wakefield wrote an admirable paper , " Killing no Murder , or the Terrorstricken Town , " describing the shock produced at Dunkirk by the hanging of a felon . Dankirk was not accustomed to Old Bailey entertainments . Writers of many countries have been engaged in presenting all the arguments that experience could collect and reason could
develope . Prejudice , however , will not yield to argument . The mass of minds are so constituted , that a purely logical proposition is not received , or is even disliked . The material-selfishness which is inculcated by economical writers , and exemplified by our upper class in tradeand statesmanship , and the general contempt for generous or ohivalrous feeling , aided by the ignorance prevalent among " the masses , " has bagotten a temper amongst the disreputable classes which has exhibited itself
in extensive and obstinate wife-beating . The reputable class , who are responsible for the government of the country , are annoyed . They pass Mr . Fitzroy ' s bill for the better restraining of malignant husbands ; the malignant husbands persevere , as if in defiance of Mr . Fitzro y ; and Bouseield caps the defiance by murdering his wife and children . There is a reaction against humanitarian mildness of punishment—the crusade against the wifebeater is largely recruited . Baffled legislation and many perplexed feelings , provoke an instinct of revenge against ; the man that causes
so much trouble to the reputable class ; there is nothing like hanging , so Bouseield is hanged . The opponents of capital punishment see all their fine arguments broken to pieces in the conflict between the brutal wife-beafcers , with BoustfiKLD for their captain , and the bigoted felon ^ beaters who hurry Bouse-ibid to the gallowsw Humanity and reason are trampled under foot ; but if the opponents of hanging had desired to turn the position of the onemy—to take a stronger position for themselves , they could not havo done bettor than BousjFiasiiD haa done for thorn . It would bo a
great invention to issue an advertisement for a great essay on capital punishment dramatized setting- forth all its brutality in the most revolting force . The public , of course , would never have tolerated such exhibition at the theatres , which are to amuse , not to teac h—to tickle , not startle . The drama , must be real and it is hardly possible to conceive the prize which would have induced any man to offer himself as the chief actor in a real drama , embodying a grand essay on capital punishmentits brutality , inexpediency , and absurdity Bottsfield has volunteered for the part , and has contributed the drama to boot .
The man had murdered his wife and children , and is hanged to satisfy justice , and to give an example to the multitude . It turns out , however , from the story , that he must have been a strong man . His occupation about a theatre suggested the instructive desire to make a show at the last , put startling situations into his Lead , and made him ., against the inevitable horror that he was approaching , set off some new horrors as a diversion . . When the religious officer of the prison approached to give him religious consolation he declined to listen . " It is all , " he said , " a bad dream . " We are
generally told that brutes of this kind undergo a grand change at the last ; and with a curious reasoning it is inferred , that because men become religious at the thought of the scaffold , the scaffold will have amoral effect upon the hardened multitude without . Botjsfiei . d showed us how little this class of men reason at ¦ all , how much settled passion and brutalised temper constitute the abiding impulse . You must get Such a man-to . prison-before . he . ' can present to himself ^ as a reality , the doom which
he provokes . Even then it comes dimly upon him . Botxsj ? ieli > did not reflect—he sulked ; as the shadow of death came near he grew maddened , but not penitent ; and evidently felt a desire to retort upon those , who inflicted horror upon him horrors that were worse , more shocking , more unbearable—and he succeeded . These reflections perhaps explain the story of the sequel . On the Saturday night he was in his cell , with a good fire . His sisters had taken leave of him , the officers of the gaol were his
companions . If he ha-d been a lettered man he might know that the suicide does not require any instrument , that he is not dependant upon the dagger , the rope , poison , a woman ' s long hair , or live coals ; but that he can extinguish the vital spark , as men have done upon the rack , by the simple suspension of breath . Bousfield knew nothing of that . Perhaps he had some dim picture , conjured up by superstition , as to his future doom . Whatever his immediate motive ? he suddenly rushed to the
fires , and threw himself upon it , into the burning co > n . ls ; but he was rescued from death in that immediate form by violence . Ho constituted a ghastly spectacle , and the surgeon was employed in the absurd duty of patching up and alleviating pain in the very man that was to be tortured and destroyed on the Monday . He refused food , but was forcibly kept alivo by milk , like a perverse baby . He was carried to the scaffold , apparently in a state of real prostration , which was accounted for by immediate and obvious causes . He was placed under
the noose , sitting in a high office chair—was hanged sitting . Hanging , ho exhibited a ghastly vigor of posturcmaking : with his arras pinioned , his only support the noose , he curlod up and placed his feet upon the edge of the scaffolding " . Pushed off by tho turnkeys of the gaol , swinging round as he dangled from tlio tree , he again raised himself up , and obtained » footing . Ho did-so a third time ; and life only yielded , after a long struggle , with , sftveral mon pulling at tho wretch ' s feob . The drama ' was closed o bho tune of fcho church bells
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1856, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05041856/page/14/
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