society. In Thuringia, the inhabitant who had
last settled in the district where an execution
was to take place, was charged with the performance
of it. The college of échevins, or sheriffs,
of the town of Antwerp selected a butcher out
of the oldest members of the corporation, to
wield the sword of the law. In the Crimea, when
the Crimea was a kingdom, the king deputed the
complaining party to put the condemned person
to death. A woman would thus have to stab
her husband's murderer; and she would carry
out this Lynch law with its utmost rigour.

The English and American laws do not condescend
to trouble themselves with a hangman.
By a fiction which is not without its grandeur,
they seem to disdain recognising the instrument
of capital punishment. Sentence of death once
pronounced, the sheriff has to see, at his risk and
peril and on his responsibility, that the
sentence is executed. The "hangman" is a person
in the pay of the sheriff, and he hangs for a
price agreed upon. Infamy—says M. Sanson—
is not attached to the judicial functions which
he fulfils. If he be despised, it is because he
usually belongs to the dregs of the populace; if
he be despicable, it is on account of the greed of
gain which has determined him to exercise his
horrible trade. But if he happened fo fail the
sheriff at the moment when the patient was led
to the gallows, and if the sheriff found no other
hangman, the duties of the sheriff's office would
compel him to act as executioner himself.

In Spain this place goes from father to son,
and an executioner is allowed to marry only into
the families of executioners. His house is
painted red, and is detached from all other
houses. No one holds any communication
with them; they live isolated in the midst of the
most populous cities; men, women, and children
shrink aside as they pass. Repulsed by their
fellows, they take refuge in devotion. On the
eve of an execution they may be seen in the
churches praying fervently. They very often join
their pious exhortations to those of the priest,
and when the unhappy wretch has expiated his
crime, they return to kneel on the consecrated
pavement, imploring the Divine mercy for the soul
whose earthly course they have violently shortened.
Divers accidents have demonstrated, in
Spain, the inconvenience of this monstrous
heirship in the office of executioner. One of the
executioners of Burgos, obliged to replace his father,
fainted several times, and, although maltreated
and forced by six alguazils, refused to finish the
execution. An executioner of Salamanca fell
seriously ill every time he had to administer the
rack. He died at last in a fit of furious delirium.
The emoluments of Spanish executioners are
considerable. In the market of every town
they have the right to exact, from every dealer
in game or poultry, the value of six sols.
Formerly, they levied a tribute of eggs on the
sellers of that commodity, and they joined to
their other attributes the profession of criers at
public sales. Lastly, they wore a uniform
consisting of a brown cloth jacket with a red
binding, a yellow girdle, and a broad-brimmed
hat on which a ladder was embroidered in gold
or silver.

In the early days of French society, the man
who put criminals to death, or who extracted
confession by means of torture, took the name
of "executor of high justice," because the
"Haut Justiciers," including therein the royal
judges, were the only persons who had the jus
gladii, the right of condemning to capital
punishments. The name of " Maître des hautes
Å“uvres," "Master of high works," which they
received almost simultaneously with the preceding
designation, arose from the circumstance that
executions and other afflictive or degrading punishments
took place on a scaffold or a gibbet
which commanded the crowd, and assured to the
chastisement a salutary publicity. The epithet
"bourreau" first made its appearance under Louis
the Ninth, about the year 1260. The learned
are not agreed about its etymology. According
to Sauval, it is not derived from the Greek,
the Latin, or the Celtic; but a clerk, named
Borel, having obtained, in 1260, the fief of
Bellencombre, subject to the charge of hanging all
the thieves of the canton, left his name to the
profession. However this may be, it is certain
that the word was originally a term of
contempt, thrown by the people at the executioner
as an insult.

Several decrees contain an express prohibition
to treat the " executor of high works" as a
"bourreau." One decree stipulates that
executioners shall not be hindered from frequenting
all public places, such as churches, walks,
theatres, and the like. From these decrees, and
from the acts which gave rise to them, it may be
concluded that the office which M. Sanson has
filled, has always been—unjustly, perhaps—the
object of public animadversion. He respects
even the excess of the sentiment which he and
his colleagues still inspire, notwithstanding the
mitigation of the penal code and the substitution
of a machine for the hideous butchery of former
times.

The office of " Maître des hautes œuvres" in
France was not strictly hereditary, as in Spain;
nevertheless, for reasons so easy to guess that
there is no need to enumerate them, once fixed
upon a family, it was very rarely shaken off.
If the post, in the middle ages as under the
monarchy, was barren of honours, it was very
liberally provided with rights. The first,
exercised in almost every town, was the right of
"havage," in legal Latin " havadium," or
"havagium." This right consisted in levying on the
grain sold at market, as much as could be taken
with the two hands. It had doubtless been
accorded to the executioner with the intention
of providing for his wants, and relieving him
from having to buy commodities which he
could not always get for money. Many persons
refused to take coin which came out of such a
purse. By an ordonnance of the Châtelet,
dated 1530, the executioner of Paris could take
toll of fruits, verjus (sour grapes), ripe grapes,
walnuts, hazel-nuts, hay, eggs, and wool; on
the passage of the Potit-Pont, on fishing-boats,