[36] “At a period when criminals were condemned to expiate their crimes
in the flames, it is well known what a large quantity of combustible
materials was required for burning their bodies. A baker’s boy named
Renaud being several years ago condemned to be burned at Caen, two large
cartloads of fagots were required to consume the body; and at the end of
more than ten hours some remains were still visible. In this country, the
extreme incombustibility of the human body was exemplified in the case
of Mrs. King, who, having been murdered by a foreigner, was afterwards
burned by him; but in the execution of this plan he was engaged for
several weeks, and, after all, did not succeed in its completion.”—_Paris
and Fonblanque’s Medical Jurisprudence._
[37] Beck on Medical Jurisprudence.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Collinson on Lunacy.
“The laws against intoxication are enforced with great rigour in Sweden.
Whoever is seen drunk, is fined, for the first offence, three dollars;
for the second, six; for the third and fourth, a still larger sum, and
is also deprived of the right of voting at elections, and of being
appointed a representative. He is, besides, publicly exposed in the
parish church on the following Sunday. If the same individual is found
committing the same offence a fifth time, he is shut up in a house of
correction, and condemned to six months’ hard labour; and if he is again
guilty, of a twelvemonth’s punishment of a similar description. If the
offence has been committed in public, such as at a fair, an auction,
&c., the fine is doubled; and if the offender has made his appearance in
a church, the punishment is still more severe. Whoever is convicted of
having induced another to intoxicate himself, is fined three dollars,
which sum is doubled if the person is a minor. An ecclesiastic who falls
into this offence loses his benefice: if it is a layman who occupies
any considerable post, his functions are suspended, and perhaps he is
dismissed. Drunkenness is never admitted as an excuse for any crime; and
whoever dies when drunk is buried ignominiously, and deprived of the
prayers of the church. It is forbidden to give, and more explicitly to
sell, any spirituous liquors to students, workmen, servants, apprentices,
and private soldiers. Whoever is observed drunk in the streets, or making
a noise in a tavern, is sure to be taken to prison and detained till
sober, without, however, being on that account exempted from the fines.
Half of these fines goes to the informers, (who are generally police
officers,) the other half to the poor. If the delinquent has no money, he
is kept in prison until some one pays for him, or until he has worked out
his enlargement. Twice a-year these ordinances are read aloud from the
pulpit by the clergy; and every tavern-keeper is bound, under the penalty
of a heavy fine, to have a copy of them hung up in the principal rooms of
his house.”—_Schubert’s Travels in Sweden._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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