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

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might be made by noting down the periods at which the various more revolting punishments under the English law were repealed, or fell into disuse.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.
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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 occur to me at the time to inquire whether the practice was connected with the season, and whether it was not confined to the native Christians.
Information upon this point, and also upon the general origin of this ancient custom, would be interesting.
A SUBSCRIBER.
Carlisle, June 3. 1850.
May Marriages (Vol. i., p. 467.).--This superstition is one of those which have descended to Christianity from