Ancient Punishments

We have less deflnite information about the punishment of crimináis in ancient times than about any other portion of their public and private economy. The prevalence of slavery left much of what is now public jurisdietion in private hands, and few records have consequently been preserved. In an early stage of civilization, moreover, the retribution which overtook the wrongdoer- when it did overtake hïm- generally took the forin of private and bloody veng-eance on the part of the reJatives or tribe of the person injured; to ttae a legal phrase, the law of tort had a much more extended application than at present. Such particulars as have come down to us relate ehiefly to the treatment of prisoners of war. These were employed by the Chaldeans, Uabylonians, Assyrians, Kgyptians and the Persians on great mblic works, such as palaces, temples cities and roads: the Vyramids. Niieveh and Persepolis were thus constructed. One of the Ivings of Assyria returned Trom a single campaign with more than two hunared thousand prisoners, and they were immedlately set to work in thls way. Diodorua Sieulus tells us that in Egypt offenders against the law, as wo'.I ;is prisofcirs taken in battle, were einploj'ed in mining1 for stone knd were treated with tlie utmost rigor and barharity. They were bound in fetters and obliged to work so hard that the greater portion speedily Buccumbed nder the strain. No rest or indulgence was granted to the sick, the feeble or the ajred, and all were compelled by blows and ill-treatment to labor to the extreme limit of human endurance. No attention was paid to their persons, and they were driven to their work with the lash, until death intervened to put an end to their sufferIngs. In the history of Greeee and Kome it is difficult to find any distinclion between the treatment of slaves and that of crimináis: both were set to heavy' outdoor labor and treated with brutal harehness; but any distinct systt-m for the punishment of crime can hardly le said to have existed until a late Deriod of the Roman Empire. Even then incarceration in noisome dungeons and labor in mines seem to have been the chlef methods of dealing with offenders. The prisons were without light and ventilation and abounded in filth and pestilential odors. Tint prisons formed a costly and troublesome means of punishment, md tortv.re, mutüations and whippings were preferred for many offenses. The cüiliest account of prisons in Chináis íound in the Shuking, or Book of History. compüed by Confucius, a, work v !;ich covers the period from 23Ö0 to 7:i:i J(. C. The prisons seem to have been arrang-ed somewhat on the plan of a large stable, liaving an open central court, occupying nearly a f ourth of the area, and small cribs or stalls covered by a roof, in which the prisoners were lodped. They were secured by manacles and gyves, achain tlie hand to the neck, and desperate crimináis were even more heavily ironed. Whipping and branding were also employed as punishnient.s. . . Cotínng down to more modern times, the most oommon form of dealing with crimináis in France for many centuries was condemning them to the galleys, or . galeres. Philip the Fair (1285-1314) appeaFs to have been the introducer of this system, and from his day until well into the present century it continued in vogue. The galleys were huge rowing vesaelB, often containing several banks of oars, which were largely used fór the transport of soldiers and military stores. Thé labor of rowing was very .heavy; and as scant consideration was shown to the prisoners, they frequently diad from the excessive exertions to which they were compelled. To prevent the possibility of escape, each man was fastened by chains to the oar at which he labored, a practice which gave rise to the familiar expression, "chained to the oar.' -