In the gloomiest but most impressive of his stories, _The Island of Dr. Moreau_, Mr. H. G. Wells has represented his savage “beast-folk” as monotonously chanting a certain “idiotic formula” about the infallibility of “the Law.” With nothing more fitly than with this can be compared the undying legend, now over half a century old, that “garrotting was put down by the lash.” It is not often that a popular fallacy, however erroneous it may be, can be actually disproved; but in this particular case such refutation was possible, in the certified fact that the garrotting “epidemic” of 1862 had been suppressed by the ordinary law _before_ flogging for that offence was legalized. For many years the Humanitarian League issued a public challenge on the subject, and made the facts known in thousands of press letters; the challenge was quietly ignored, and the false statement repeated, till it was plain that, as De Quincey remarked, “rarer than the phœnix is that virtuous man who will consent to lose a prosperous story on the consideration that it happens to be a lie.” One such virtuous man, however, and one only, was found, namely, Mr. Montague Crackanthorpe, who actually recanted the statement which he could not substantiate.[29] In view of his unique candour, it was suggested after his death that a statue should be erected to his memory. Very different from the course taken by Mr. Crackanthorpe was the action of Sir Alexander Wood Renton, of the Supreme Court of Ceylon, who, in an article on “Corporal Punishment,” introduced into the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ of 1910 that very garrotting legend from which it had previously been kept free, and made the further mistake of giving the date of the Flogging Act of 1863 as 1861, thus lending to his blunder a misleading appearance of plausibility. When called to account, he was content to maintain a masterly silence--more eloquent than words--and to allow his misstatement, unacknowledged and uncorrected, to continue to keep alive a prevalent superstition. Can it be wondered that such fallacies persist, when a Chief Justice will thus lie low rather than admit himself at fault?