Scourging

“ Simply dried and twisted, they form a scourge as terrible as the Russian knout or African cowhide, though of a different character—a scourge which, even in its lightest form, reduces the wildest herd to instant order; and which, as employed on criminals, is hardly less dreaded than that electric rack whereby Martial science inflicts on every nerve a graduated torture such as even ecclesiastical malignity has not invented on Earth—such as I certainly will not place in the hands of Terrestrial rulers. ”

“ This agony, and not the love I bear thee, is the work of sorcery. It is a forgery—I will never believe it; and yet her signature is there! and after trial, when torture, shame, and agony were past, what could bring forth an avowal such as this? Oh, what but remorse for deceiving one who had loved thee so well! The mother of fiends! she so good, so charitable, so religious, who never missed a mass or festival. I shudder and laugh at the same moment! A sorceress—Jane .... where is the Jane I loved—the good and gentle? ”

“ When the overflowing scourge shall pass through our country, and others shall fall under it, yet it shall not come to us, not reach us, though it extend far, not bear us down, though it is an overflowing scourge." It is the greatest folly imaginable for impenitent sinners to think that either in this world or the other they shall fare better than their neighbours. ”

“ God's blackest and deepest curse—"
"Oh, father! father!" broke in the young girl in a very wail of agony so pitiful that it must have moved any heart not calloused for the moment against all natural feeling, but that availed nothing to stop the impending curse or even to lower the voice that uttered it.
"—God's deepest and blackest curse 'light upon the coward! shame, sorrow, and quick death! He shall have neither house, home nor family from this moment! I disown this bastard of my blood! I devote him to ruin and to perdition!" ”

“ Now, though I desire to mention a circumstance which took place at that time, I am in doubt whether to do so or not, lest if it should be looked upon as unimportant, it may appear to take off from the enormity of these great iniquities; but even if it is unimportant in itself, it is nevertheless an indication of no trifling wickedness of disposition. There are different kinds of scourges used in the city, distinguished with reference to the deserts or crimes of those who are about to be scourged. ”

“ When he lays the lashes of the scourge on his flesh—it may be on his carious bones—he does it not for his own sins alone, but for the sins of the whole world; and in his searching, self-imposed humiliations, there is a silent, broad out-reaching of sympathetic effort in behalf of all his kind. Sorrow may not depict itself freely on his face. If a suffering invalid, he must manifest no interest in the progress of his malady, feel no concern regarding the result. ”

“ In vain he entreated them not to kill themselves, and assured them that heaven would be satisfied, and that human nature could not endure beyond a certain point. No answer but the loud sound of the scourges, which are many of them of iron, with sharp points that enter the flesh. ”

“ Beneath the scourge, what is there that cannot be wrung from the lips of the sufferer? His agony is over-whelming, and he seeks to escape by speaking falsely. The officials profit by the opportunity, and cause him to say what will best confirm his guilt. ”

“ A curse upon the folly of our nurses and teachers, who fill our imaginations with frightful tales, and impress fearful images of punishment upon the plastic brain of childhood, so that involuntary shudders shake the limbs of the man with icy fear, arrest his boldest resolutions, and chain his awakening reason in the fetters of superstitious darkness. Murder! What a hell full of furies hovers around that word. Yet 'tis no more than if nature forgets to bring forth one man more or the doctor makes a mistake—and thus the whole phantasmagoria vanishes. ”

“ Been the scourge of the country, for many a day.
He was lawless and wild;
Man, woman, or child
Met no mercy, no pity, if found in his path;
He was worse than a beast of the woods, in his wrath.
And yet--to be hung,
Oh, my God! to be swung
By the neck to, and fro, for the rabble to see--
The thought sickens me.
Thirty minutes past nine. How the time hurries by,
But a half hour remains, at ten he will die.
Die? No! he'll be killed!
For God never willed
Men should die in this way. ”

“ Oh, we can easily find a pretext. After all, this poor man did not ill-use himself in this outrageous way. Some human hand was on the handle of that scourge, if indeed it was a scourge which inflicted the injuries. ”

“ What crime hast thou committed to make thee take the scourge in thy hands, and, besides thy strict and constant fasting, so unmercifully chastise thyself, weak and sickly as thou art, that thou walkest about like a living corpse or a skeleton? ”

“ I have heard that the throat and lungs often become inflamed before the Black Death seizes its victim, and that in districts where the scourge has reached, any persons who appear to have about them even a common rheum are cast forth from their homes even by those nearest and dearest, for fear they are victims to the terrible scourge."
"Misfortune makes men cruel if it do not bind them closer together. Raymond, I see a purpose in thy face -- a purpose of which I would know the meaning. That light in thine eyes is not for nothing. ”

“ The day was hot enough to overcome a man merely standing that length of time in the sun, and this was going on in the full blaze of it. However, they had a pair of scourgers, who gave each other spell and spell about, and they were bespattered with blood like a couple of butchers. ”

“ The sorcerer took the hair, saliva, or other substance, which had belonged to his victim, to his house, or marae, performed his incantations over it, and offered his prayers; the demon was then supposed to enter the substance (called tubu) , and through it to the individual who had suffered from the enchantment.”— (“Polynesian Researches,” vol. ii. p. 228, quoted in “The Nat. Trib. of S. Australia,” p. 25.)
“If the death of any obnoxious person is desired to be procured by sorcery, the malevolent native secures a portion of his enemy’s hair, refuse of food, or excrement ”

“ In vain were dead men’s skins brought out for the invalids to be laid on. In vain did adventurous warriors waylay the members of other tribes, in order to secure their kidneys to make ointment for the sufferers. In vain did the old gins rinse their mouths and spit beside the sick, invoking curses on the sorcerer who had caused them to writhe in agony. It was manifest, the blacks said, that the sorcerer came and went as he pleased, underground, to the camp, and that he must be slain before its peace could be restored. Handsome Bob was the sorcerer credited with its calamity. ”

“ In general he wears the episcopal pallium with the mitre and crosier as bishop: the bee-hive is sometimes placed at his feet; but a more frequent attribute is the knotted scourge with three thongs. The scourge is a received emblem of the castigation of sin: in the hand of St. Ambrose it may signify the penance inflicted on the Emperor Theodosius; or, as others interpret it, the expulsion of the Arians from Italy, [Pg 305] and the triumph of the Trinitarians. It has always this meaning, we may presume, when the scourge has three knots, or three thongs. ”

“ The sorcerer, often grotesquely painted, enters the ring, chants a song, and proceeds to force the evil spirit from the sick man by pressing both clenched fists with all his might in the pit of his stomach, kneading and pounding also other parts of the body, blowing occasionally through his own fingers, and sucking blood 287 from the part supposed to be affected. The spectators pound with their sticks, and all, including doctor, and often the patient in spite of himself, keep up a continual song or yell. ”

“ As has happened in Europe and elsewhere, in the presence of torture and the instant advance of death, the sorcerer and sorceress will not only confess, but even boast of and believe in, their own criminality. ”

“ The scourge, often repeated with all its rage, could not conquer invincible faith, even although the membrane which enclosed the entrails were broken, and it was no longer the limbs but the wounds of the servants of God that were tortured. ”

“ Away with the sorceress! God’s curse be on her for her evil doings!” shouted the mob.
It was early morning, yet even at that hour the judgment hall of the little town of Bourdonnois was thronged with the populace. Men, women and children, old and young, the noble and the burgher, priests, soldiers and common people, crowded the spacious hall, and glared fiercely on the prisoner, while ever and anon they muttered imprecations on her, and cried madly for her blood. ”

“ Of the desolations which it occasions, enough is known to excite the abhorrence and execration of mankind; but that innumerable instances of its barbarities lie concealed in impenetrable obscurity, we may reasonably infer from the mournful cases that are accidentally brought to light. The death of the victim seals up, in perpetual silence, the history of his sufferings; and even those tales of horror that are rescued from oblivion, can do little more than extort the sigh of commiseration, and urge humanity to shed her tears. The biography of James Scurry is an instance of this description. ”

“ Nor will I attempt to excuse or palliate any part of my conduct; for you, whose life has passed without spot, cannot tell the goading power of that fiery scourge with which one great crime drives us on to a thousand more, in order to conceal it. My cruel, I might almost say insane, persecution of an unhappy man who, as I hear, is now no more, had such feelings for its cause; but I know too well that if my deep and bitter repentance be not accepted by the Almighty, it will be no vindication of a great crime to urge that it was the consequence of another. ”

“ I have been a coward, I suppose, from my very cradle and heaven only knows how I have managed to conceal the terrible truth from you, all this while! The very sight of blood sickens me, even when it is only the blood of beeves in a slaughter-house. One spirt from the arm of a man when he is being bled sets every nerve to trembling, and sometimes sends me fainting to the floor. ”

“ The scourge has left a sad void between friends living and friends gone to eternal rest. Familiar faces pass us on the street, only to remind us of familiar faces passed away forever. The city is astir again. ”

“ The faces of all—men, women, and children—wore an ominous and gloomy expression; and the attitudes in which they stood betokened terror and alarm. Murmurs I could hear—now and then ejaculations—and sobs that bespoke sympathy with some one who suffered. I saw scowling brows, as if knit by thoughts of vengeance. But these last were few—the more general expression was one of terror and submission.
It was not difficult to tell that the cry I had heard proceeded from the neighbourhood of the pump, and a glance unfolded the cause. Some poor slave was undergoing punishment! ”

“ She clasp'd her hands in pangs severe,
And shrieks reveal'd her agony.
And fainting on the earth she lay,
With struggles of convulsive breath,
As if weak life had fled away
In terror at the sight of death. ”

“ The victim, however, is not to be terrified out of his senses. What are his enemy's fires and incantations to him? He takes no notice, and continues to live on as though there was not a sorcerer in the world. But that smoke: it meets his eye the first object every morning. That ruddy glare: it is the last thing he sees at night. ”

“ It remains no longer, but to mock my sense and scoff at my sorrow, to rend my bosom with a woe, complicated, matchless and inexpressible. The cheek is pale and livid; the eyes are sunk and circled with blackness. Corruption and ruin have already seized their prey and turned it into horror. ”

“ I said; "I have something else to think about. Listen; if you are ever unlucky enough to tell a single soul of what has happened, I will strangle you."
"Alas! sir, what am I to do?" he replied with a mixture of innocence and malice. "The sorcerer said I was to tell my parents." ”

“ Now, as the money-changers were escaping from his wrath, one of them ran against a little child that was in the court, and it fell screaming. The fellow took no heed, but went on his course. But the man with the scourge went to the little child and raised it to its feet, and pressed it to his side; the hand that rested on the curly head was that of a workman, with broken nails, and yet the fingers twitched with the excitement of the man. ”

“ The Lord's scourge shall pass over by night and by day, and the report thereof shall vex all people; yet it shall not be stayed until the Lord come; for the indignation of the Lord is kindled against their abominations and all their wicked works; nevertheless Zion shall escape if she observe to do all things whatsoever I have commanded her, but if she observe not to do whatsoever I have commanded her, I will visit her according to all her works, with sore affliction, with pestilence, with plague, with sword, with vengeance, with devouring fire ”

“ The most courageous, the most bloodthirsty man grew mild and gentle before the scourge. Desperate men prowled about in search of food, but they wanted nothing else. Certainly they would not have attempted violence to get it. ”