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    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

    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 might be almost entirely removed from out the laud . 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 tlieir professed intention of putting an 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 wrono-s of

    their fellow-subjects . Some honourable exceptions undoubtedly prevailed . So far back as 1840 , Mr . M . Lewtkt distinctly advised the authorities that torture was used in his district , but those greafc . ' ~ 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 .

    for a present of twenty shillings . Having duly paid his rent , and the season being unfavourable , he declined to do so ,, and was immediately seized by the p « tty 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 own house and ail 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 very simple machine , consisting merely of two sticks tied together at one end , between which the iino-ers

    are placed as in a lemon squeezer . " When the " Mttee" is not forthcoming , a convenient substitute is found by compelling , the victim to interlace his fingers , the ends being squeezed Tby 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 " moheyloving Hindoo" the few pence he still possesses after paying his land-tax . The close-handed ungenerous man will find himself laid on his

    back , with a h « avy stone upon the pit of his stomach , a stout cane placed across that , and on either end of the cane a policeman seated . To avoid suffocation , he reluctantly engages to sacrifice his little all . Sometimes chilly powder is blown into his eyes ; or , yet more horrible , is introduced through a straw into the penis or anus . These are the more usual modes of proceeding with those who cannot , or will not , gratify the cupidity of the tax-gatherers . And yet no 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 really no appeal . And were it otherwise , the police is so wretchedly corrupt that any complaint would produce only an additional grievance . The police themselves are addicted to the use of torture to a still greater extent in judicial than in fiscal cases . Equally vain would it be to apply for redress to the European collector , though a member of the highly-favourod Civil Service , and peculiarly approved by tlie magnates of LeadOnhall-street . Sometimes , indeed , an enterprising individual does venture to address his serene highness , but is invariably referred to the very superintendent of police against whom he is appealing . Or peihaps he petitions the sub-collector , who tells him that £ is remedy is by an action in a court for damages , and sends him on to the principal

    collector . This gentleman tears his petition in , pieces , and promises that the sub-colleotor shall inquire into his case ; after which pithing moro ia ever thought of it . The European magistrates , in point of fact , are numerically insufficient for the duties assigned to them . For a territory comprising 13 , 000 square miles , with a population of a million ana a half , there ? ma-y be no more than four HimK *; ® 0 *? ' forth ° > °° 0 inhabitant * of Madras ,, there i 8 but one . It is therefore physxoal-ly , nipO 88 ible that proper attention can be paid to the welfare of tho people , from

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    great invention to issue an advertisement fora 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 teach 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 punishment its brutality , inexpediency , and absurdity . Bousbield 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 head , and made him , against the inevitable horro-r that he was approaching , set off some new horroi-3 as a diversion . When the religious officer of the prison approached to give hint

    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 a moral effect upon the hardened multitude without . Bousfield showed us how little this class of men reason at all , how much settled passion and brutalised temper constitute the abiding impulse . Yoii

    BOUSFIELD OJSF 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 . Dun ^ kirk 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 eyen 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 chivalrous feeling , aided by the ignorance prevalent among " the masses , " hag begotten 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 . FiTZEor ; and Bousfusld caps the defiance by murdering his wife tind children . There is a reaction against humanitarian , mildness of punishment—the crusade against the wifebeater is largely reexuited . Baffled legislation , and many perplexed feelings , provoke an instinct of revenge against the man that causos

    so much trouble to the reputable class ; there ia nothing like hanging , so BoosFneu ) is hanged . The opponents of capital punishment see all their fine arguments broken to pieces in the oonfliot between the brutal wife-beaters , with Bousfikld for theii ? captain , and the bigoted folon-boatora who hurry Bousfxhld to the gallows . Humanity and reason are tramplod under foot ; bub if the opponents of hanging had deairod to turn the position of the onemy—to take a stronger position for themselves , they could not have done bettor than BoueiriBLD has dono for them . It would be a

    must get such a man to prison before lie can present to himself , as a reality , the doom which he provokes . Even then it comes dimly upon him . Bousfield 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 had been a lettered man he might know that the suicide does not require any instrument , that lie is not dependant upon the dagger , the rope , poison , a woman ' s longhair , 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 lie had some dim picture , conjured up by superstition , as to his future doom . Whatever his

    immediate motive , he suddenly rushed to the fire , and threw himself upon it , into the burning coals ; 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 , lie refused food , but was forcibly kept alivo fcy milk , like a perverse baby . Ho 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 , he exhibited a ghastly vigor of posturo-making : with his arms pinioned , his only support the noose , he curled up and placed his feet upon the edge of tho scaffolding . Pushed off by the turn keys of tho gaol ? swinging round aa he dangled from the troo , ho again raised himself up , and obtained a footing . He did so a third timo ; and lift only yielded , after a long struggle , with several men pulling at tho wretch ' s feet . Tho drama wsws oloaod o the tune of th « church bolls

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    326 THE LEADER [ No . , Saturda ¥ -

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1856, page 326, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2135/page/14/