The Jesup sentinel. (Jesup, Ga.) 1876-19??, May 16, 1877, Image 1

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SELECT MISCELLANY. THE FISHERS' GRAVE. I' ally two hundred and fifty wen and hoys were drowned on that stormy night.”—Datfji payer. WjH roars the storm upon the sea, 'ild sorrow on the shore > iiie women weeping woefttlly F’or those that never more ihhall bring their boats up to the land, These stalwart men and brave; J lie women weeping, waiting stand, The boats sink in the wave. A ery comes from the raging deep, The women Wring their hands ; ihey shriek and ery and madly weep— Mad waves beat on the sands* And faraway, beyond our ken, _ There, vanquished in the light, full five times fifty boys and men Went down that stormy nigtil, A dreary night to those bereft Lone loved ones by the shore ; V et sound the little children slept Amid the wild wind’s roar. And when the morning sun uprose O’er sandy shore and les, Ao message came to tell of those That lie deep i. Ms Sea. From Judy. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. ANCIENT AND MODETtV. In olden times punishment was in flicted on the offender corresponding to the arnouut of pain or suffering which he had inflicted on others. Hence arose the retaliatory principle of punishment, which demanded an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, etc. But now it is consiuered a vindictive proceeding, couprary to the spirit of the age, and that it a person is to be deprived. y>f life, it should he done in the tnaliner which will cause the least pain. Blackstonc has enumerated one hun dred and sixty offences for which, only a century back, the law provided the punishment of death. Four-fifths of these excluded the “benefitof clergy,” as it was called. It no longer exists, unit the death punishment in England, sis with us, is now narrowed down almost to the two crimes of murder and treason. Crucifixion was a very ancient pun ishment. The Syrians, Jews, Egyp tians, and especially the Carthaginians, used it. But in no part of the ancient world was this punishment so generally resorted to as in the Roman empire, w'aere it was regarded as the most in famous of deaths. By the Roman law, the culprit was scourged previously to the crucifixion, either in the prtoto riutn or on the way to the place of execution. On his arrival there he wtis stripped of his garments, and then either nailed or tied by the hands and feet to the cross, or, as sometimes hap pened, only [fastened to it by ropes. In order to hasten death, it was the practice to break the legs or to pierce the body of the sufferer with a spear. By the Jewish law, it was ordained that the body of the culprit should he removed from the cross on the day of his execution; hut the Romans fre quently allowed it to hang until it dropped piece-meal to the ground. Among the Greeks capital punish m.ent was inflicted by regular killing, or, as in the case of Socrates, by or dering that the victim should drink a howl of hemlock, which is poisonous. The ancient Israelites stoned their cul prits to death, and in Rome certain criminals were destroyed by throwing them from the Tarpeiau rock. In England during the middle ages death was the ordinary punishment for all felonies; but, if the culprit could read, he escaped with life, on a first conviction. In the British army and navy, within the present century, soldiers and sailors have been literally flogged to death with a cat-o-nine-tails. Sometimes 1,000 lashes were ordered. The i'jtliction, though much mitigated, is s,iill continued in the British mili tary and naval service. In the Amer ican it has been humanely abolished within the last thirty years. During the first French revolution what was facetiously called “republi can marriages ” (where two persons of different sexes, bound together by j strong cords, were cast into the river j Rhone at Lyons and left to drown) j were outrages upon humanity. Formerly, in Scotland, culprits’ heads were chopped off by the maiden. It was an old contrivance revived, ; having been used in Persia in early times. In Italy its name was mannaja, , and culprit-nobles had the privilege of i being decapitated by it, and a similar j instrument had been previously used I in Germany. In France, in 1{532, a j Due de Montmorenci had been exe i cuted by a similar instrument at Tou- j louse, and a century back the Dutch employed if, in executions. There fore in October, 17!J0, when Joseph Ignace f tuillotin, a physician of Paris, proposed to the national assembly there the u i of the beheading instru ment wh' a perpetuates his name, he only i' proved on an old idea. The guillotine consists of two upright pieces of wood fixed in a horizontal frame; a sharp blade of steel moves up and down by means of a pulley in grooves in the two uprights; the edge is oblique instead of horizontal. The criminal is laid on his face, his neck immediately under the blade, which severs it at a blow from his body. Louis XVI. perished by it. Guiilotin was imprisoned during the reign of terror, hut was released at the revolu tion of July, 17!*4, and died in March. I*l4, at the age of seventy six. Throughout'Europe, with the excep tion of Spain, barging and beheading are the onlv methods of execution. In England there was a punishment called “pressing to death.” When ®)c Jlconi) Sentinel. VOL. I. the accused refused to confess his guilt | lie was made to die by the netnc .fbrf: ct dure. In the reign Of Elizabeth I Tudor, one Mrs. Margaret Middleton, j wife of A rich citizen of York, accused ] of harboring a schoolmaster, refused j to plead guilty, because she considered | that such a plea would be equivalent to a falsehood. She was divested of ! all her clothes and robed In a long | linen habit. She lay doWn oil the | ground, her face covered with A hamt j kerchief. Then ft doOr Ms placed upon her, ahd her extended hands I were botmd to two posts, her feet being 1 recurred to two others. A .Sharp strike | Was placed under hFt hack. Then upon the doo’r were heaped iron j weights, which broke her ribs, while the | stone under her back broke her spine. The poor woman uttered only one ex- I clamation and was soon dead. Trai tors were usually beheaded or put to the rack, but those of a lower class were “hanged, drawn and quartered,” literally cut in pieces while life yet re mained in the body, It need scarcely bo mentioned that for “heresy,” a great tnnny persons have been burnt alive at the stake. The, last instance, of burning alive in England occurred in 1612, when Bartholomew Legate was burned at' Smithfield for holding opinions similar to those of the Unita rians Of Otlr day. In Spain and in her colonies capital punishment is inflicted by the garrotte, which is a species of violent strangu lation, which is instantaneous and is said to be painless. The punishment by the knout, which formerly was general throughout Rus sia for almost every variety of crime, and which barbarously murdered many persons by slow and prolonged, and most horrible torture, was abol ished by the present czar, Alexander 11. The Culprit was bound to two stakes, and received on his hare back (he specified number of lashes from a whip of plaited thongs interwoven with wire. From one hundred to two hundred and twenty lashes were the highest number inflicted, and were considered equivalent to a sentence of death. It the criminal survived ho was banished for life to Siberia. For merly. the nose was slit, the ears cut off and the letter V (for var, rogue) branded on the forehead. In China, simple beheading is the mode of capital punishment, and the unfortunate victim is usually half starved before his execution, besides being exposed in view of the whole community, who taunt him with the vilest and most abusive epithets, some times alternated by blows and the pelting of stones, sticks and mud. Sometimes the bastinado (a baton or cudgel) is used, and the punishment often destroys life. Another Chinese mode of legal life-taking is horrible. The. culprit is placed between two planks, around which a rope is firmly bound, and the executioner saws tim ber and man through the middle. A singular mode of execution pre vails in the empire of Japan. It was called liara-kari, liara-kiru (which means “belly-cut”), and was a rccog pointed knife. It was often done by the person himself, hut there were professional performers in most of the large cities of Japan. The tycoon would intimate to such or such per sons that he was dissatisfied with them, whereupon, taking the hint , they made way with themselves. The Japanese have little fear of death, and endure the most cruel tortures with a passive fortitude. Punishment on the wheel was first employed in Germany on the mur derers of Leopold, Duke of Austr'a, in the fourteenth century. Accord ing to the German mode of this sav age execution, the criminal was laid on a wheel with his arms and legs ex tended, and his limbs, in that posture fractured with an iron bar. Between the years of BJO to !00, ! the laws of Scotland was barbarous. ! The following are some of the laws : That all persons convicted of theft shall be bang’d and all convicted of manslaughter shall lose his head, and any woman convicted of a capital crime, shall he drewn”d or buried alive. He that blasphemeth God or his saints, shall want his tongue. If a son injure his parent, by word : or deed, he shall first lose either tongue, hand or foot whereby he offended his par ent and then be bang’d and his body remain unburied. Jugglers, wizzards or any person known to use familiarity with the devil or evil spirit shall he burnt to death. All oppressors and invaders of other , men’s lands shall he beheaded. In Turkey, when the sultan was dis ! satisfied with any pasha or other supe ; rior officer, or wished to obtain his ! wealth, it was usual for him to send a messenger to the doomed man, who , politely communicated to him the im perial desire that hi- death should take place and produced a warrant to JEJsITP, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1(> 187?. that effect., taijctiler With a tough bow string (made of cat-gut), which —the action being instantly suited to the Word—was thereupon placed ar ntnd the neck to produce strangulation. At one time great culprits were fastened to four horse;, a limb to each horse, and the horses being urged dif ferent Ways, [Milled limb ffom limb. The-last persdit wild sb suffered in Eu rope was Robert Francisco Damiens, for an attempt on the life of Louis XV., in 17y7. _ ___ A iM;i.uiati's Scheme of Salvation. The New York Times says that a man who calls himself Martin Hig gins, after preliminary negotiations, bought out part of a small Yankee notion concern in Chatham street on Saturday, paying three hundred dol lars. He betrayed no strange charac teristics until last evening, when, in the presence of his new partner, the old otie whose interest he had pur chased, and three others, he suddenly produced a hook and planked it upon the counter, exhibiting a vast number of bank notes varying in Value from ten dollars to live hundred dollars. He looked at his auditors intently for a moment, and then, informing them of their sinful character, proceeded to preach to them. He had come to re deem them, and he would pay them ten dollars each to listen to him an hour. His auditors became wearied, and lie increased his bid to one hun dred dollars each, and then to one thousand dollars. He had locked the door, but two of his hearers escaped. It was after midnight, and the light went out. The maniac collected waste paper and fired it, and, this being ex hausted, he drew out his pocket-book and threw hill after hill into the flames before ho could be secured. He as sured one of the men that ho must he damned, though he could ave the others, and he sprang for some kuives on the shelf. A long struggle ensued, and the madman was finally hound. He was given over to the oflicers and taken to the Toombs. (Several thou sand dollars were still found in his pocket-book, and hank notes repre senting upward of' fifty thousand dol lars. He has for some time made large amounts of money in sugar raising in the south. It is one theory that In: was robbed by his associates, and the police arc now at work on llie case. Impaired Sight of School Children. It has been a matter of comment that the sight of many school children is becoming impared, and in some cities medical men made examinations into the matter. Recently Dr. Spaudling, of' Portland, Me., looked into the eyes of the school children of that city. The examination proved that twenty per cent, were of defective vision. Many of these were very slightly affected, yet ten per emit, were short sighted enough to need glasses. Dr. Spaudling’s deductions are that the defective lighting of school rooms is one cause of the trouble, and that the habit of holding the hook too close to the eyes is another. He advises ciiil dren not to study with their eyes to a bright light, to rest their eyes fre quently, and when it is necessary to use glasses not to use the stronger ones than is needed. He adds: They should he taught that the light shosid always come from the side, or even over the shoulder; that the book should be held up, if possible, and never in the lap; they should always have a shade over a lamp standing on a table at a level witli the eyes, and especially if they have to lace the light, as in writing ; and that all bend ing positions, and reading in the twi light, or with the sunlight pouring over the book, are very harmful to the eyes.” High Foreheads. The notion that high foreheads, in women as well as men, are indispensa ble to beauty, came into vogue with phrenology, and is going out with the deciine of that pretentious and plaus ible “ science.” Not long ago, more than one “ fine lady” shaved her I ead to give it an “ intellectual ” appear ance ; and the custom of combing the hair hack from the forehead probably j originated in the same mistaken am bition. When it is considered that a erreat expanse of forehead gives a bold masculine look—lhat from from (fore head) comes the word “ effrontery,” it will not he wondered that the ancie - t painters, sculptors and poets considered j a low forehead “a charming thing in woman,” and, indeed, indispensable to ; female beauty. Horace praises Lycori? , for her low forehead [tenuix frou/\ ; and Martial commends the same grace ] as decidedly as he praises the arched eyebrow. A WKJ.I. moulded arm is prettier without bracelets; besides they are li hie io scratch a fellow’s ear. — Jitih'n'd. , in NEXT EUROPEAN EViLH^. All who can Escape from the Burdens of a Great European War will Come to America if We only Make a Bid for Them. A table dispatch received In this City Saturday by it shipping agent states that “over twenty thousand Russians may he expected at this port during the summer; and that nearly tile saftic iiutfllifef ha Vo decided ft poo going tt) Australia.'’ This piece Of news points directly to’ buy Vofiy iiif portant advantage which this cofintry is quite sure to derive from the im pending war in Europe, provided only we have common sense and practical capacity enough left in us to avail our selves of it. The emigration from Europe to tlii.s country to which we have been so enormously indebted in the past) has been steadily falling off for the last fotlr or five years, until it has shrunk from a river to a rivulet. Within the last twelvemonth, indeed, we have actually begun to lose popu lation instead of steadily acquiring it. A small hut otninous drift has set in of skilled and enterprising emigrants from this country to the Antipodes, not as yet of sufficient importance to startle the general public, hut signifi cant enough to set cooler and longer heads thinking as to the causes and tendency of so novel a phenomenon. The approach of a great war on the other side of the Atlantic cannot fail to disturb and alarm the industrious classes in all the countries which arc al ready within or are likely soon to he .drawn within its vortex. Great wars call for great armies, and great armies mean the sacrifice by great numbers of the leoplo of their property, their prospects in life, and their lives them selvi . All who can contrive to escape from the burdens of a great war will natu ally set about it, not only in Rus- i, over which empire the cloud now mugs, low and black and ready to a ret., hut in eastern and central ami "western Europe. Austria is on the very edge of the approaching con flict;- the German empire within its immediate influence; Great Britain more than likely to be involved in it. at no distant day. If so large an emi gration as the dispatch upon which wc are now commenting states, has already been organized in Russia, it is only reasonable to expect a still more important revival of the European exodus from other countries. Whether this new exodus, when it fairly begins, shall turn westward to us, orsouthward to the Australian world, will depend mainly on the evidences which we may he able to give, within the next few months, that industry may look for remunerative employment once more among us. To exchange the pleasures of unproductive tax-paying is the old world for the pleasures of i uproductive tax-paying in the new world, is not ex actly the sort of prospect which can he thought likely to allure the small capitalists and hard-working farmers, mechanics and laborers of Europe to our shores. Danger of Sleeping in Moonlight. 'file evil consequences liable to re sult from exposure to a burning sun are only too well understood, hut it is j perhaps not so generally known that j in many parts of the world, notably in India, there is a strong and very :cn i oral prejudice against sleeping in full moonshine, as it is supposed to pro duce “ rnoocstroke.” An old Indian resident has recently been devoting his attention to the subject, and comes to the conclusion that, any ill effects arising from sleeping in the n oonlight are not due to any direct influence of the moon itself. His explanation of the origin ot tins prevalent belief in the baleful qualities of the goddess of | night is very rational, and may be I summarized as follows: A clear sky admits of rapid radiation, and any person exposed to such radiation is sure to he chilled by rapid loss of heat. There,,is reason to believe that under the circumstances paralysis of ore side of the face is sometimes likely to oc cur when the sky is perfectly clear and in full moon. The whole matter thus comes clear on this explanation. Pro longed exposure to cold is almost cer tain to produce headache, neuralgia, or even paralysis, owing to the retarda tion of the circulation and these or -imilar injuries have been attributed to the moon, when the proximate cause may really have been the chill, which will always be the greatest on the very i clear nights. When Russia, in 1827, declared war against Turkey, cattle-plague be came rapidly diffused through Bes sarabia, and extended thence with the greatest virulence and mortality into Wallachia and Moldavia, and Goon entered Podolia, and Volbynia. From these countries, Poland, Hungary, i Prussia, Saxony, and finally the Aus- Itrian states were infected, and nofc- NO, 37. withstanding the most energetic meas ures, ttlle lors 4 ”* were immense. Even in 1860 the nuiied} not suppress ed, hut smoldered along 1 ffffi hanks of the Danube as far as Illyria. Pat the Imvoc is wrought during the opera tions of the Kusso-Turkish war, the works of Von Moltke and Chesney alibi'd evidence, and it is shown that among other thiltg.fi, the rotting car casses of the cattle which perish from the disease, and were left unburied, gave rise to human typhus in its most frtallgttfi.nt form. A Senathtial Jokffi A amUsing incident occurred id the senate over the appropriation for the school of mines. Senator Seay had set his heart on securing an increase of SIO,OOO for that institution, find had been bending all his energies to the accomplishment of' that end. Realiz ing his anxiety about the matter, Sen ators Voting, Mayor, Parish, Wilson and others, quietly slipped around the ehatnb r and made arrangement with all the senators to vote “no” on first vote taken on Seay's amendment to add SIO,OOO to the appropriation for his pet. Seay made a really good speech m behalf of his amendment, and sat down to tremblingly await the result. “Those in favor of tli * amend ment offered by the senator from I ’helps will say aye,” said Senator Phe lan, who occupied the clmir. “ Aye!” rang out Seay’s voice, soli tary and alone. “Those who are opposed say no,” said the chair. “ No-o-o!” responded the entire sen ate in chorus. A deadly pallor overspread Seay’s face as he sank hack in his chair with a sad realization that his cherished dream had lied. “The lines appear to have it,” said Phelan. “ Division! division!’ came up from all parts of the chamber. “Those in favor of the amendment will rise and stand until they arc counted," said the chair, and up stood every senator except Seay, who had not yet sufficiently recoved from the shock to have strength enough to rise to his feet. “ How does the senator from Phelps vote?” innocently inq"h and the ei.a r. “ Why —why—of course I vote aye, Mr. President!” said Seay, in a bewil dered sort of way, as if lie could scarcely believe the ovidedee of his own senses at the sudden turn of alfitirs. Learn the Value of Money. A silver dollar represents a day’s work of the laborer. It it is given to n hoy, he lias no idea of what it has cost, or of what it is wort h. He would he as iikely to give a dollar as a dime for a top or any ot her toy. But if the hoy has learned to earn his dimes and dollars by the sweat of his face, he knows the dillerence. Hard work is to him a measure of values that can never he rubbed out of his mind. Bet him learn by experience that a hun dred dollars represents a hundred weary days’ labor, and if seems a great sum of money. A thousand dollars is a great fortune, and ten thousand is almost inconceivable, for it is far more than he ever expects to possess. When he has earned a dollar he thinks twice before he spends it. He wants to in vest it so as to get the full value of a day’s work for it. It is a great wrong to society and to a boy to bring him up to man’s estate without this knowl edge. A tortune at twenty-one, with out it, is almost inevitably thrown away. With it, and a little capital to start on, he will make his own for tune better than anyone can make it for him. A Pose fora “Wounded Amazon.” When Gibson modeled the “Wound ed Amazon” he said to a friend of mine who went to his studio to see the statue in the clay, “ Yes, that is my ‘Wounded Amazon.’” You may haye doubtless heard Gibson’s pecular, dry, crisp mode of talking imitated, and can imagine how he spoke. “Yes, I call it a ‘Wounded 'Amazon ; ’ but that statue is a proof of how useful it is for an artist to keep his eyes open. Now, how do you think I found that pose? I,was just going along the street, and I saw a girl catching a Ilea! I -topped and said to myself, ‘That’s a pretty pose —a very pretty pose indeed: ’ and I took it flown. Bo I thought it over. I I set up and worked it out, and there it stands as rnv ‘Wounded Amazon.’ But it is the very pose of the girl catching the flea, nevertheless. A pretty pose it is, you see ; and, as I said, it shows that an artist must not fail to keep his eyes always open. ” A MINISTER who had twice married the same couple —a divorce ensuing between the two marriages—remarked that he didn’t wish to add a repairing department to his business. ODD NOTES. THE HOME OF MY HEART. Not here in the populous town, lu Ibe pla7boN.se or mart, Not here in the ways gray anil brown, But afar on the green swelling down, Is the home of my heart. There the hillside slopes down to a dell Whence a streamlet has start There are woods and sweetgrass on the swell, And the south winds and west know it well; ’Tis the home of my heart. There’s a cottage o’ershowed by leaves Growing fairer than ait, When finder the low sloping eaves No false hand the swallow bereaves, ’Tis the home of my heart. And there as you gaze down the lea, Where the trees stand npart, Over grassland and woodland may be Yolt will catch the faint gleam of the sea Frptn the home of my heart. And there irt the rapturous spring, When the mornlNX rays dart O’er the plain, and the morning birds sing, You may see the most beautiful thing In the home of my hear?: For there at the casement above, Where the rose bushes pait, Will blush the fair face of my love All, yes! it is this that will prove ’Tis the home of my heart “ When Mr. Phillips calls you a liaf, ft villian and a scoundrel,” says General Devens, “he merely means that he does not agree with you.” “Gath” says that the humorous paragranher is a moral and mental dwarf, that his mind is an ash heap and liis language poppycock. A daughter wept bitterly while witnessing the opera of “Paul and Vir ginia.” “ Don’t cry,” sail her father; “ they earn 3,000 francs every night.” If Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines’ law suits should he decided in her favor many times more, perhaps her grand children may be able to get possession of a portion of the property. Cauuion often averts danger. An uptown man who heard burglars in the house the other night, woke up his wife and sent her down stairs for a drink of water, and then crawled un der Ihe bed and wasn’t injured in the least. — Norwie/i Bulletin. When a good many people get to heaven their greatest surprise will be t<>> learn that the recording angel had credited the occasional dollar given for a subscription to a country news paper to the a count of a just debt, and not to charity. A haying by the lamented Cho quart, duelist: 'They were speaking of someone not present, tor whom he did not appear to entertain much affection. “ Unless 1 am seriously mistaken,” said Choquart.. “ I’ll have to pull his nose sonic of these fine days.” “But what for?” “What for? If I knew what for I’d go and do it now.” An insurance agent was subjected to spectrum analysis the other day, and the brass lines so completely tilled the spectrum, from end to end, and over laid the others that the liner elements ol his composition could not ho at all detected, save the suggestion of a dia mond sparkle from the shirt-besom section. —Holton .\dnertieer A Hykauuhk undertaker advances the novel theory that the steady de crease in deaths which has been for some time noticed throughout the country is due to the hard times. There is more force in this than at first appears, since people are now com pelled by force of circumstances to in dulge in fewer luxuries and live upon rational diet. Tut: latest chemical notion is to fell trees by electricity. The two ends ot the copper wires of a galvanic battery are connected with a platinum wire, which, of course, instantly becomes red h<t, and while so is gently see sawed across the trunk of the tree to he felled, until it burns its way through. It is calculated that a tree which would require two hours’ hard chopping to bring down, can he cut through by this process in fifteen minutes. A correspondent of the Paris Figaro lately strolling about the Lon don streets, noticed a large crowd hur rying into a woodeti booth. Having paid his shilling he entered also, and found the great attraction to consist of a sailor sitting quietly smoking and drinking beer. Over his head was the following inscription: “This is the only sailor in the Artie expedition who succeeded in perspiring at the north pole.” Coffee as an Invigorator. A correspondent of the London Lan cet, who owns a water-power mill says: I am frequently compelled, at this sea son of the year, to have men working in water even in frosty weather. I find the following allowance gives great satisfaction to the men, and we never have a case of cold or injury to the men in any way. Kettle of coffee, made with hall sweet-milk, half water, three or four eggs whipped poured into it when off the boil; hot toasted bread with plenty of butter of finest quality. Serve up this every two and a half hours. The expense is much less than the usual allowance of whisky, and the men work far better, and if care is taken to have the coffee, milk (cream is still better), bread and butter of the very finest quality, the men are de lighted with it. 'I am persuaded it would lie worth while to try this allow ance instead of grog. Giving extra grog mves the men a notion that it is good "for them, and perpetuates tho belief in stimulants among workmen.