The offender is stripped naked to the waist, tied up with his hands widely extended, and with his face to a strong post; then a man takes a large strong cat, kept hungry and savage for the purpose, and placing the creature at the back of the neck, draws it forcibly down the naked back. Of course the cat holds on with teeth and claws. This is repeated till the culprit faints, when the cat is removed. The back of the man is washed with vinegar and salt, and he revives, perhaps to undergo the infliction again. This astonishing mode of correcting offenders is called _flogging with the cat_. I may also make a remark upon another feature of criminal punishment. The crime of _treason_, not only insures the death, but the horrid mutilation of the culprit; and, not satisfied with this, reaches to the innocent wife and children. All the estates, titles, honours, properties of the offender are sequestrated to the State, and his blood is _attainted_; that is, made incapable of giving honour and employment to his offspring! Thus the innocent are disgraced, and reduced, not merely to beggary, but, as far as possible, placed in a condition of hopeless misery! The Idolatry and Sacred Writings are, no doubt, responsible for this impolitic injustice and cruelty. For _Jah_ is constantly made by the Priests to say, that he visits the sins of the father upon his child even to the tenth generation! A natural development of the moral sense would fall short of this vindictiveness; and in this false and horrible wrath, taught in their _Sacred Writings_, the fierce Barbarians are encouraged to outdo themselves! The greatest of all the Courts, and which chiefly controls the others, is the High and Mighty COURT OF CHANCERY. It has many names--as Court of Equity, of the King's Conscience, and others--assuming as many styles and jurisdictions as the ancient _Proteus_ of Egypt; who, as the Priests said, could take any form, or no form, be fire, or cloud, or invisible air. So this Court, feared by the Barbarians with a paralyzing dread, takes on any shape! It stands for the King's conscience--which, as the conscience of a Pope-king, must be a doubly divine thing. For, as remarked elsewhere, "_Divinity doth hedge a King!_" We, I think, should fear that this conscience would be as uncertain as the man. Its function is, therefore, to decide with _Equity_; to relieve against the inexorable hardness of the ancient rules; and give relief in cases of _mistake_, _accident_, and _fraud_. This looks admirable, but it is all _sham_ (phu-dgi).