Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 | Page 4

drawn; and there being very few
instances (and those accidental or by negligence) of any persons being
embowelled or burned, till previously deprived of sensation by

strangling."
This corroborates the conclusion of E. S. S. W., that the woman he
describes was strangled at the stake to which her neck was bound.
I wish to suggest to any of your legal or other well-informed
correspondents, who will have the kindness to take a little trouble for
the benefit of your general readers, that an instructive and interesting
communication might be made by noting down the periods at which the
various more revolting punishments under the English law were
repealed, or fell into disuse. For instance, when torture, such as the rack,
was last applied; when embowelling alive and quartering ceased to be
practised; and whose was the last head that fell under the axe's bloody
stroke. A word also on the use of the pillory, ducking-stool, stocks, &c.
would interest. Any illustrations of the modification of our penal code
would throw valuable light on the philosophy and improvement of the
national character. And I believe it would appear that the Reformation
gradually swept away the black horrors of the torture-room; that the
butchery of the headsman's block ceased at the close of the civil contest
which settled the line of regal succession; and that hanging, which is
the proper death of the cur, is now reserved for those only who place
themselves out of the pale of humanity by striking at human life.
ALFRED GATTY.
Ecclesfield.
E. S. S. W. (Vol. ii., p. 6.) will find a case of burning in Dodsley's
Annual Register, 1769, p. 117.: a Susannah Lott was burned for the
murder of her husband at Canterbury, Benjamin Buss, her paramour,
being hanged about fifteen minutes before she was burned.
T. S. N.
* * * * *
FOLK LORE.

Death-bed Mystery.--In conversation with an aged widow,--as devout
and sensible as she is unlettered,--I yesterday learned a death-bed
mystery which appeared new to me, and which (if not more commonly
known than I take it to be) you may perhaps think worthy of a place in
"NOTES AND QUERIES," to serve as a minor satellite to some more
luminous communication, in reply to B. H. at Vol. i., p. 315. My
informant's "religio" (as she appears to have derived it by tradition
from her mother, and as confirmed by her own experience in the case
of a father, a {52} husband, several children, and others), is to the
effect that a considerable interval invariably elapses between the first
semblance of death, and what she considers to be the departure of the
soul.
About five minutes after the time when death, to all outward
appearance, has taken place, "the last breath," as she describes, may be
seen to issue with a vapour, or "steam," out of the mouth of the
departed.
The statement reminds me of Webster's argument, in his Display of
supposed Witchcraft, chap. xvi., where, writing of the bleeding of
corpses in presence of their murderers, he observes:
"If we physically consider the union of the soul with the body by the
mediation of the spirit, then we cannot rationally conceive that the soul
doth utterly forsake that union, until by putrefaction, tending to an
absolute mutation, it is forced to bid farewell to its beloved tabernacle;
for its not operating ad extra to our senses, doth not necessarily infer its
total absence. And it may be, that there is more in that of Abel's blood
crying unto the Lord from the ground, in a physical sense than is
commonly conceived," &c.
Sir Kenelm Digby (I think I remember) has also made some curious
remarks on this subject, in his observations on the Religio Medici of Sir
T. Brown.
J. SANSOM.
Easter Eggs.-The custom of dyeing eggs at Easter (alluded to, Vol. i.,

pp. 244. and 397.) prevails in different parts of Cumberland, and is
observed in this city probably more specially than in any other part of
England. On Easter Monday and Tuesday the inhabitants assemble in
certain adjacent meadows, the children all provided with stores of
hard-boiled eggs, coloured or ornamented in various ways,--some being
dyed an even colour with logwood, cochineal, &c.; others stained
(often in a rather elegant manner) by being boiled in shreds of
parti-coloured ribbons; and others, again, covered with gilding. These
they tumble about upon the grass until they break, when they finish off
by eating them. These they call pace-eggs, being no doubt a corruption
for pasche.
This custom is mentioned by Brande as existing among the modern
Greeks; but I believe it will be found more or less in almost all parts of
Christendom.
I observed when in Syria during Easter quantities of eggs similarly
dyed; but it did not