Show TORTURE IN punishment barbarous treatment of malefactors in the colonial the constitution of the united states and those of the various states in biting cruel and unusual punishment were not fight ingan absurdity the use of torture in legal processes was not when these instruments were framed so remote as it is now when sir thomas dole came as ghigli marshal to virginia lie crushed a conspiracy by killing the ringleaders ring leaders by torture one had a bodkin thrust through his tongue and was chained to a tree until he died others were broken on the wheel it is quaintly stated eliat sir thomas was a man of good conscience and knowledge in divinity doles date was the next notable instance of the use of torture was in in the salom witchcraft excitement cit ement uiles cory was pressed to death the peine burc et forte the most horrible of dc atlis A far worse instance was alie burning of the negroes at the stake in new york 1741 as already described in aliese columns throughout alie early colonial period the use of the stocks cage and pillory was common but aliese were torture only to alie sensitive spirit A similar device is the or plank necklace four feet square which chinese prisoners still carry executions were in public throughout the cast until comparatively recent times when the pirate and six others were hanged in boston sewall wrote in his diary when the scaffold was let to sink was such a of the women eliat my wife heard it sitting in our entry to the orchard though alie gallows was a mile away and the wind unfavorable the use of torture to wring the truth from witnesses is said to leave been recognized as legal in austria until well within the present century N Y recorder |