CHAPTER I

BUGS AND BEASTS BEFORE THE LAW

Criminal prosecution of rats--Chassenée appointed to defend them--Report of the trial--Chassenée employed as counsel in other cases of this kind--His dissertation on the subject-- Nature of his argument--Authorities and precedents--The withering of the fig-tree at Bethany justified and explained by Dr. Trench--Eels and blood-suckers in Lake Leman cursed by the Bishop of Lausanne with the approval of Heidelberg theologians--White bread turned black, and swallows, fish, and flies destroyed by anathema--St. Pirminius expels reptiles--Vermifugal efficacy of St. Magnus’ crosier--Papal execratories--Animals regarded by the law as lay persons, and not entitled to benefit of clergy--Methods of procedure--Jurisdiction of the courts--Records of judicial proceedings against insects--Important trial of weevils at St. Jean-de-Maurienne extending over more than eight months--Untenableness of Ménebréa’s theory--Summary of the pleadings--Futile attempts at compromise--Final decision doubtful--St. Eldrad and the snakes--Views of Thomas Aquinas--Distinction between excommunication and anathema-- “Sweet beasts and stenchy beasts”--Animals as incarnations of devils--Their diabolical character assumed in papal formula for blessing water to kill vermin--Amusing treatise by Père Bougeant on this subject--All animals animated by devils, and all pagans and unbaptized persons possessed with them--Demons the real causes of diseases--Father Lohbauer’s prescription in such cases--Formula of exorcism issued by Leo XIII.--Recent instances of demoniacal possession-- Hoppe’s psychological explanation of them--Charcot on faith-cures--Why not the duty of the Catholic Church to inculcate kindness to animals--Zoölatry a form of demonolatry--Gnats especially dangerous devils-- Bodelschwingh’s discovery of the _bacillus infernalis_-- Gaspard Bailly’s disquisition with specimens of plaints, pleas, etc.--Ayrault protests against such proceedings-- Hemmerlein’s treatise on exorcisms--Criminal prosecution of field-mice--Vermin excommunicated by the Bishop of Lausanne--Protocol of judicial proceedings against caterpillars--Conjurers of cabbage-worms--Swallows proscribed by a Protestant parson--Custom of writing letters of advice to rats--Writs of ejectment served on them-- Rhyming rats in Ireland--Ancient usage mentioned by Kassianos Bassos--Capital punishment of larger quadrupeds-- Berriat-Saint-Prix’s Reports and Researches--List of culprits--Beasts burned and buried alive and put to the rack--Swine executed for infanticide--Bailly’s bill of expenses--An ox decapitated for its demerits--Punishment of buggery--Cohabitation of a Christian with a Jewess declared to be sodomy--Trial of a sow and six sucklings for murder-- Bull sent to the gallows for killing a lad--A horse condemned to death for homicide--A cock burned at the stake for the unnatural crime of laying an egg--Lapeyronie’s investigation of the subject--Racine’s satire on such prosecutions in _Les Plaideurs_; _Lex talionis_--Tit for tat the law of the primitive man and the savage--The application of this iron rule in Hebrew legislation--Flesh of a culprit pig not to be eaten--Athenian laws for punishing inanimate objects--Recent execution of idols in China--Russian bell sentenced to perpetual exile in Siberia for abetting insurrection--Pillory for dogs in Vienna--Treatment prescribed for mad dogs in the Avesta--Cruelty of laws, of talion and decrees of corruption of blood--Examples in ancient and modern legislation--Cicero approves of such penalties for political offences--Survival of this conception of justice in theology--Constitutio Criminalis Carolina--Lombroso opposed to trial by jury as a relic of barbarism--Corruption of Swiss cantonal courts--Deodand in English law--Applications of it in Maryland and in Scotland--Blackstone’s theory of it untenable--Penalties inflicted for suicide--Ancient legislation on this subject--Legalization of suicide--Abolition of deodands in England _p._ 18