and was convicted. The sentence was, ori ginally, that the delinquent should be thus kept " till he pleaded," but it was afterwards altered to pressing " till he died." Blackstone's very laudable zeal for the pu rity of the English Constitution leads him into a strange contradiction on the subject. After very justly exposing the absurdity of the theory of the civilians, that judicial tor ture originated in the mercy of the judges, he gives identically the same reason for this diabolical practice of pressing to death, " that it was intended as a species of mercy to the criminal, to deliver him the sooner from his torture!" This barbarous practice no doubt origina ted in the avarice of the feudal lords to make the only means by which the accused could save the forfeiture of his lands as frightful as possible. To the honor of the English judges, however, it must be admitted that "peine fort et dure " was never inflicted till every other means of making the prisoner plead had been tried in vain. It is not generally known that the punish ment of sending to the galleys was also once practised in England, as appears from a stat ute of Elizabeth (48 Eliz. c. 14); and Lord Coke, in his third Institute, mentions it with out remarking its being very uncommon. The practice was, probably, discontinued from its inconvenience, as galleys such as were in use in the Mediterranean were unfit for the navigation of English seas. The word " gallimafry," now used to signify a jumble of nonsense, originally meant a meal of coarse victuals such as was given to galley slaves. The nearly synonymous word " hotch pot" (vulgarly, "hotchpotch") is well known to have a similar origin. Two other barbarous customs which once formed a part of the English law were or deals and trial by battle. The last instance of the former occurred, it is believed, in King John's reign; though Barrington remarks that a vestige of it was retained in the for mal phrase, used by a criminal on his ar raignment, when asked how he would be
tried; the answer, "by God and my country," being a corruption of " by God or my coun try," that is, by ordeal or by jury. But the equally absurd trial by battle was not abol ished until a very much later date. Two in stances in which it was attempted to be put in actual practice occurred in the reign of Charles I. One was an appeal of treason between Lord Rey and Mr. David Ramsay (an ac count of which appeared in the March num ber of the " Green Bag " ), and the other attempt to have a legal duel was in a civil case (Lilburn v. Claxton), and the champions were hired to fight with sand-bags and batons. This was put a stop to by the good sense of the king, who wrote to the judges to prevent it if possible, and the clerk pur posely made a mistake in the record so that it could not immediately take place, in con sequence of which the parties to the suit seem to have let the matter drop. From this time it is believed trial by bat tle was totally disused until revived in the case of a most atrocious murder, a short time before the passing of the statute for its abo lition. A man of the name of Thornton had abused and murdered, under circumstances of the greatest aggravation, a girl of the name of Mary Ashford. Though the evi dence for the prosecution was supposed to be irresistible, the ingenuity of his counsel saved him, and he was acquitted on the in dictment. However, as the public in gen eral had no doubt of his guilt, a plan was entered into to bring the matter forward again, which it was allowable to do by the old form of an appeal of murder, to be pros ecuted by William, the brother of Mary Ash ford. This was one of the modes of pro ceeding in which wager of battle had been formerly permitted. Ashford was very weak and delicate, while Thornton was an im mensely powerful man; and as there was no doubt of the case going against him if it was brought to a second trial, he availed himself of this antiquated right and challenged the appellant. The judges, though exceedingly
