On the abolition of the “Ordeal,” in the thirteenth century, when the accused, in a criminal charge, refused to submit to a “Trial by Battle,” the courts were unable to force a plea, without some amendment of the procedure and adroit criminal lawyers, for some years, availed themselves of this subterfuge, of having their clients stand mute and refuse to plead, when their conviction of felony would be certain to result and the courts found themselves helpless to avoid a condition, which resulted in the crowding of the jails and prisons, with prisoners, afraid to submit to the “Trial by Battle” and refusing to plead to the indictments filed against them. This, in time, brought about the greatest judicial severity in the case of prisoners standing mute and finally the practice, in all such cases, came to be to apply a heavy weight upon the chest of the accused and to literally “press him to death,” if he persisted in his obstinacy. For centuries, in England, this custom continued, and thousands were “pressed to death,” for standing mute, when arraigned upon a criminal charge. The same practice was followed in the witch persecutions in this country, in the seventeenth century and when we consider that these abominable customs obtained, until the past century, we are, indeed, to be congratulated that our present procedure, with all of its imperfections, has risen to the standard where it is able to reject such inhuman and barbarous practices. The “Benefit of Clergy” and “Privilege of Sanctuary,” illustrate the attempt of the Church to mollify, as it were, the cruelties resulting from the harsh administration of the criminal laws of mediaeval times, in England, by the secular courts and had it not been for these beneficent institutions—which were frequently utilized to protect criminals of the worst sort—there would have been no alleviation for the sufferings of the accused, and the large number of innocents who embraced the plea of Clergy, or sought the sacred precincts of the protected Sanctuary, would, along with the guilty, have paid the penalty for living in a dark and benighted age, unable to protect the innocent from the power of the mighty, when accused of wrong-doing. When we read of the “Ancient Punishments” of the past centuries, we can but feel a satisfaction that the struggle of our English forefathers of mediaeval times, by herculean efforts against those in authority, adopted such fixed principles of constitutional law, as we find reflected in _Magna Charta_, and the various constitutions of our own country, preventing “cruel and unusual punishment.”