The Humbugs of the World

CHAPTER XLIX

Ordeals belong to times and communities of rudeness, violence, materialism, ignorance, gross superstition and blind faith. The theory of ordeals is, that God will miraculously decide in the case of any accused person referred to Him. He will cause the accused to be victorious or defeated in a duel, will punish him on the spot for perjury, and if the innocent be exposed to certain physical dangers, will preserve him harmless.

The duel, for instance, used to be called the “ordeal by battle,” and was simply the commitment of the decision of a cause to God. Duels were regularly prefaced by the solemn prayer “God show the right.” Now-a-days nobody believes that skill with a pistol is going to be specially bestowed by the Almighty, without diligent practice at a mark. Accordingly, the idea of a divine interposition has long ago dropped out of the question, and duelling is exclusively in the hands of the devil and his human votaries, – is a purely brutal absurdity. But in England, so long was this bloody, superstitious humbug kept up, that any hardened scoundrel who was a good hand at his weapon might, down to the year 1819, absolutely have committed murder under the protection of English law. Two years before that date, a country “rough” named Abraham Thornton, murdered his sweetheart, Mary Ashford, but by deficiency of proof was acquitted on trial. There was however a moral conviction that Thornton had killed the girl, and her brother, a mere lad, caused an appeal to be entered according to the English statute, and Thornton was again arraigned before the King’s Bench. In the mean time his counsel had looked up the obsolete proceedings about “assize of battle,” and when Thornton was placed at the bar he threw down his glove upon the floor according to the ancient forms, and challenged his accuser to mortal combat. In reply, the appellant, Ashford, set forth facts so clearly showing Thornton’s guilt as to constitute (as he alleged,) cause for exemption from the combat, and for condemnation of the prisoner. The court, taken by surprise, spent five months in studying on the matter. At last it decided that the fighting man had the law of England on his side, admitted his demand, and further, found that the matters alleged for exemption from combat were not sufficient. On this, poor William Ashford, who was but a boy, declined the combat by reason of his youth, and the prisoner was discharged, and walked in triumph out of court, the innocent blood still unavenged upon his hands. The old fogies of Parliament were startled at finding themselves actually permitting the practice of barbarisms abolished by the Greek emperor, Michael Palaeologus, in 1259, and by the good King Louis IX of France in 1270; and two years afterwards, in 1819, the legal duel or “assize of battle” was by law abolished in England. It had been legal there for five centuries and a half, having been introduced by statute in 1261.

Before that time, the ordeals by fire and by water were the regular legal ones in England. These were known even to the Anglo Saxon law, being mentioned in the code of Ina, A. D., about 700. It appears that fire was thought the most aristocratic element, for the ordeal by fire was used for nobles, and that by water for vulgarians and serfs. The operations were as follows: When one was accused of a crime, murder for instance, he had his choice whether to be tried “by God and his country,” or “by God.” If he chose the former he went before a jury. If the latter, he underwent the ordeal. Nine red hot ploughshares were laid on the ground in a row. The accused was blindfolded, and sent to walk over them. If he burnt himself he was guilty; if not, not. Sometimes, instead of this, the accused carried a piece of red hot iron of from one to three pounds’ weight in his hand for a certain distance.

The ordeal by water was, in one form at least, the same wise alternative in after years so often offered to witches. The accused was tied up in a heap, each arm to the other leg, and flung into water. If he floated he was guilty, and must be killed. If he sank and drowned, he was innocent – but killed. Trial was therefore synonymous with execution. The nature of such alternatives shows how important it was to have a character above suspicion! Another mode was, for the accused to plunge his bare arm into boiling water to the elbow. The arm was then instantly sealed up in bandages under charge of the clergy for three days. If it was then found perfectly well, the accused was acquitted; if not, he was found guilty.

Another ordeal was expurgation or compurgation. It was a simple business – “as easy as swearing;” very much like a “custom house oath.” It was only this: the accused made solemn oath that he was not guilty, and all the respectable men he could muster came and made their solemn oath that they believed so too. This is much like the jurisprudence of the Dutch justice of the peace in the old story, before whom two men swore that they saw the prisoner steal chickens. The thief however, getting a little time to collect testimony, brought in twelve men who swore that they did not see him take the chickens. “Balance of evidence overwhelmingly in favor of the prisoner,” said the sapient justice (in Dutch I suppose,) and finding him innocent in a ratio of six to one, he discharged him at once.

This ordeal by oath was reserved for people of eminence, whose word went for something, and who had a good many thorough-going friends.

Another sort of ordeal was reserved for priests. It was called corsned. The priest who took the ordeal by corsned received a bit of bread or a bit of cheese which was loaded heavily, by way of sauce, with curses upon whomsoever should eat it falsely. This he ate, together with the bread of the Lord’s supper. Everybody knew that if he were guilty, the sacred mouthful would choke him to death on the spot. History records no instance of the choking of any priest in this ordeal, but there is a story that the Saxon Earl Godwin of Kent took the corsned to clear himself of a charge of murder, and (being a layman) was choked. I fully believe that Earl Godwin is dead, for he was born about the year 1000. But I have not the least idea that corsned killed him.

The priests had the management of ordeals, which, being appeals to God, were reckoned religious ceremonies. They of course much preferred the swearing and eating and hot iron and water ordeals, which could be kept under the regulation of clerical good sense. Not so with the ordeal by battle. No priests could do anything with the wrath of two great mad ugly brutes, hot to kill each other, and crazy to risk having their own throats cut or skulls cleft rather than not have the chance. In consequence, the whole influence of the Romish church went against the ordeal by battle, and in favor of the others. Thus the former soon lost its religious element and became the mere duel; a base indulgence of a beast’s passion for murder and revenge. The progress of enlightenment gradually pushed ordeals out of court. Mobs have however always tried the ordeal by water on witches.

Almost all the heathen ordeals have depended on fire, water, or something to eat or drink. Even in the Bible we find an ordeal prescribed to the Jews (Numbers, chap v.,) for an unfaithful wife, who is there directed to drink some water with certain ceremonies, which drink God promises shall cause a fatal disease if she be guilty, and if not, not. It is worth noticing that Moses says not a word about any “water of jealousy,” or any other ordeal, for unfaithful husbands!

This drinking or eating ordeal prevails quite extensively even now. In Hindostan, theft is often enquired into by causing the suspected party to chew some dry rice or rice flour, which has some very strong curses stirred into it, corsned fashion. After chewing, the accused spits out his mouthful, and if it is either dry or bloody, he is guilty. It is easy to see how a rascal, if as credulous as rascals often are, would be so frightened that his mouth would be dry, and would thus betray his own peccadillo. Another Hindoo mode was, to give a certain quantity of poison in butter, and if it did no harm, to acquit. Here, the man who mixes the dose is evidently the important person. In Madagascar they give some tangena water. Now tangena is a fruit of which a little vomits the patient, and a good deal poisons or kills him; a quality which sufficiently explains how they manage that ordeal.

Ordeals by fire and water are still practiced, with some variations, in Hindostan, China, Pegu, Siberia, Congo, Guinea, Senegambia and other pagan nations. Some of those still in use are odd enough. A Malabar one is to swim across a certain river, which is full of crocodiles. A Hindoo one is, for the two parties to an accusation to stand out doors, each with one bare leg in a hole, he to win who can longest endure the bites they are sure to get. This would be a famous method in some of the New Jersey and New York and Connecticut seashore lowlands I know of. The mosquitoes would decide cases both civil and criminal, at a speed that would make a Judge of the Supreme Court as dizzy as a humming-top. Another Hindoo plan was for the accused to hold his head under water while a man walked a certain distance. If the walker chose to be lazy about it, or the prisoner had diseased lungs, this would be a rather severe method. The Wanakas in Eastern Africa, draw a red hot needle through the culprit’s lips – a most judicious place to get hold of an African! – and if the wound bleeds, he is guilty. In Siam, accuser and accused are put into a pen and a tiger is let loose on them. He whom the tiger kills is guilty. If he kills both, both are guilty; if neither, they try another mode.

Blackstone says that an ordeal might always be tried by attorney. I should think this would give the legal profession a very lively time whenever the courts were chiefly using tigers, poison, drowning, fire and red hot iron, but not so much so when a little swearing or eating was the only thing required.

This whole business of ordeals is a singular superstition, and the extent of its employment shows how ready the human race is to believe that God is constantly influencing even their ordinary private affairs. In other words, it is in principle like the doctrine of “special providence.” Looked at as a superstition however – considered as a humbug – the history of ordeals show how corrupt becomes the nuisance of religious ways of deciding secular business, and how proper is our great American principle of the separation of state and church.

CHAPTER L

The annals of ancient history are peculiarly rich in narratives of pretension and imposition, and either owing to the greater ignorance and credulity of mankind, or the superior skill of gifted but unscrupulous men in those days, present a few examples that even surpass the most remarkable products of the modern science of humbug.

One of their most surprising instances – in fact, perhaps, absolutely the leading impostor – was the sage or charlatan (for it is difficult to determine which) known as Apollonius Tyanæus so called from Tyana, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, his birthplace, where he first saw the light about four years earlier than Christ, and consequently more than eighteen and a half centuries ago. His arrival upon this planet was attended with some very amazing demonstrations. With his first cry, a flash of lightning darted from the heavens to the earth and back again, dogs howled, cats mewed, roosters crowed, and flocks of swans, so say the olden chroniclers – probably geese, every one of them – clapped their wings in the adjacent meadows with a supernatural clatter. Ushered into the world with such surprising omens as these, young Apollonius could not fail to make a noise himself, ere long. Sent by his doting father to Tarsus, in Cilicia, to be educated, he found the dissipations of the place too much for him, and soon removed to Ægæ, a smaller city, at no great distance from the other. There he adopted the doctrines of Pythagoras, and subjected himself to the regular discipline of that curious system whose first process was a sort of juvenile gag-law, the pupils being required to keep perfectly silent for a period of five years, during which time it was forbidden to utter a single word. Even in those days, few female scholars preferred this practice, and the boys had it all to themselves, nor were they by any means numerous. After this probation was over, they were enjoined to speak and argue with moderation.

At Ægæ there stood a temple dedicated to Æsculapius, who figured on earth as a great physician and compounder of simples, and after death was made a god. The edifice was much larger and more splendid than the Brandreth House on Broadway, although we have no record of Æsculapius having bestowed upon the world any such benefaction as the universal pills. However, unlike our modern M. D.s, the latter was in the habit of re-appearing after death, in this temple, and there holding forth to the faithful on various topics of domestic medicine. Apollonius was allowed to take up his residence in the establishment, and, no doubt, the priests initiated him into all their dodges to impose upon the people. Another tenet of the Pythagorean faith was a total abstinence from beans, an arrangement which would be objectionable in New England and in Nassau street eating houses.

Apollonius however, who knew nothing of Yankees or Nassau street, manfully completed his novitiate. Restored at length to the use of beans and of his talking apparatus, he set forth upon a lecturing tour through Pamphylia and Cilicia. His themes were temperance, economy, and good behavior, and for the very novelty of the thing, crowds of disciples soon gathered about him. At the town of Aspenda he made a great hit, when he “pitched into” the corn merchants who had bought up all the grain during a period of scarcity, and sold it to the people at exorbitant prices. Of course, such things are not permitted in our day! Apollonius moved by the sufferings of women and children, took his stand in the market place, and with his stylus wrote in large characters upon a tablet the following advice to the speculators in grain:

“The earth, the common mother of all, is just. But, ye being unjust, would make her a bountiful mother to yourselves alone. Leave off your dishonest traffic, or ye shall be no longer permitted to live.”

The grain-merchants, upon beholding this appeal, relented, for there was conscience in those days; and, moreover, the populace had prepared torches, and proposed to fry a few of the offenders, like oysters in bread-crumbs. So they yielded at once, and great was the fame of the prophet. Thus elevated in his own opinion, Apollonius, still preaching virtue by the wayside, set out for Babylon, after visiting the cities of Antioch, Ephesus, etc., always attracting immense crowds. As he penetrated further toward the remote East, his troops of followers fell off, until he was left with only three companions, who went with him to the end. One of these was a certain Damis, who wrote a description of the journey, and, by the way, tells us that his master spoke all languages, even those of the animals. We have men in our own country who can talk “horse-talk” at the races, but probably none so perfectly as this great Tyanean. The author of “The Ruined Cities of Africa,” a recent publication, informs us that at Lamba, an African village, there is a leopard who can “speak.” This would go to show that the “animals,” are aspiring in a direction directly the opposite of the acquirements of Apollonius, and I shall secure that leopard, if possible, for exhibition in the Museum, and for a fair consideration send him to any public meeting where some one is needed who will come up to the scratch!

But, to resume. On his way to Babylon, Apollonius saw by the roadside a lioness and eight whelps, where they had been killed by a party of hunters, and argued from the omen that he should remain in that city just one year and eight months, which of course turned out to be exactly the case. The Babylonish monarch was so delighted with the eloquence and skill of the noted stranger, that he promised him any twelve gifts that he might choose to ask for, but Apollonius declined accepting anything but food and raiment. However, the King gave him camels and escort to assist his journey over the northern mountains of Hindostan, which he crossed, and entered the ancient city of Taxilia. On the way, he had a high time in the gorges of the hills with a horrible hobgoblin of the species called empusa by the Greeks. This demon terrified his companions half out of their wits, but Apollonius bravely assailed him with all sorts of hard words, and, to literally translate the old Greek narrative, “blackguarded” him so effectually that the poor devil fled with his tail between his legs. At Taxilia, Phraortes, the King, a lineal descendant of the famous Porus – and truly a porous personage, since he was renowned for drinking – gave the philosopher a grand reception, and introduced him to the chief of the Brahmins, whose temples he explored. These Hindoo gentlemen opened the eyes of Apollonius wider than they had ever been before, and taught him a few things he had never dreamed of, but which served him admirably during his latter career. He returned to Europe by way of the Red Sea, passing through Ephesus, where he vehemently denounced the speculators in gold and other improper persons. As they did not heed him, he predicted the plague, and left for Smyrna. Sure enough, the pestilence broke out just after his departure, and the Ephesians telegraphed to Smyrna, by the only means in their power, for his immediate return; gold, in the meanwhile, falling at least ten per cent. Apollonius reappeared in the twinkling of an eye, suddenly, in the very midst of the wailing crowd, on the market place. Pointing to a beggar, he directed the people to stone that particular unfortunate, and they obeyed so effectually, that the hapless creature was in a few moments completely buried under a huge heap of brickbats. The next morning, the philosopher commanded the throng to remove the pile of stones, and as they did so, a dog was discovered instead of the beggar. The dog sprang up, wagged his tail, and made away at “two-forty” and with him the pestilence departed. For this feat, the Ephesians called Apollonius a god, and reared a statue to his honor. The appellation of divinity he willingly accepted, declaring that it was only justice to good men. In these degenerate days, we have accorded the term to only one person, “the divine Fanny Ellsler!” That, too, was a tribute to superior understanding!

Our hero next visited Pergamus, the site of ancient Troy, where he shut himself up all night in the tomb of Achilles; and having raised the great departed, held conversation with him on a variety of military topics. Among other things, Achilles told him that the theory of his having been killed by a wound in the heel was all nonsense, as he had really died from being bitten by a puppy, in the back. If the reader does not believe me, let him consult the original MS. of Damis. The same accident has disabled several great generals in modern times.

Apollonius next made a tour through Greece, visiting Athens, Sparta, Olympia, and other cities, and exhorting the dissolute Greeks to mend their evil courses. The Spartans, particularly, came in for a severe lecture on the advantages of soap and water; and, it is said, that the first clean face ever seen in that republic was the result of the great Tyanean’s teachings. At Athens, he cured a man possessed of a demon; the latter bouncing out of his victim, at length, with such fury and velocity as to dash down a neighboring marble statue.

The Isle of Crete was the next point on the journey, and an earthquake occurring at the time, Apollonius suddenly exclaimed in the streets:

“The earth is bringing forth land.”

Folks looked as he pointed toward the sea, and there beheld a new island in the direction of Therae.

He arrived at Rome, whither his fame had preceded him, just as the Emperor Nero had issued an edict against all who dealt in magic; and, although he knew that he was included in the denunciation, he boldly went to the forum, where he restored to life the dead body of a beautiful lady, and predicted an eclipse of the sun, which shortly occurred. Nero caused him to be arrested, loaded with chains, and flung into an underground dungeon. When his jailers next made their rounds, they found the chains broken and the cell empty, but heard the chanting of invisible angels. This story would not be believed by the head jailer at Sing Sing.

Prolonging his trip as far as Spain, Apollonius there got up a sedition against the authority of Nero, and thence crossed over into Africa. This was the darkest period of his history. From Africa, he proceeded to the South of Italy and the island of Sicily, still discoursing as he went. About this time, he heard of Nero’s death, and returned to Egypt, where Vespasian was endeavoring to establish his authority. While in Egypt, he explored the supposed sources of the Nile, and learned all the lore of the Ethiopean necromancers, who could do any thing, even to making a black man white; thus greatly excelling the skill of after ages.

Vespasian had immense faith in the Tyanean sage, and consulted him upon the most important matters of State. Titus, the successor of that monarch, manifested equal confidence, and regarded him absolutely as an oracle. Apollonius, who really seems to have been a most sensible politician, wrote the following brief but pithy note to Titus, when the latter modestly refused the crown of victory, after having destroyed Jerusalem.

“Apollonius to Titus, Emperor of Rome, sendeth greeting. Since you have refused to be applauded for bloodshed and victory in war, I send you the crown of moderation. You know to what kind of merit crowns are due.”

Yet Apollonius was by no means an ultra peace man, for he strongly advocated the shaving and clothing of the Ethiopians, and their thorough chastisement when they refused to be combed and purified.

When Domitian grasped at the imperial sceptre, the great Tyanean sided with his rival, Nerva, and having for this offence been seized and cast into prison, suddenly vanished from sight and reappeared on the instant at Puteoli, one hundred and fifty miles away. The distinguished Mr. Jewett, of Colorado, is the only instance of similar rapidity of locomotion known to us in this country and time.

After taking breath at Puteoli, the sage resumed his travels and revisited Greece, Asia Minor, etc. At Ephesus he established his celebrated school, and then, once more returning to Crete, happened to give his old friends, the Cretans, great offence, and was shut up in the temple Dictymna to be devoured by famished dogs; but the next morning was found perfectly unharmed in the midst of the docile animals, who had already made considerable progress in the Pythagorean philosophy, and were gathered around the philosopher, seated on their hind legs, with open mouths and lolling tongues, intently listening to him while he lectured them in the canine tongue. So devoted had they become to their eloquent instructor, and so enraged were they at the interruption when the Cretans re-opened the temple, that they rushed out upon the latter and made a breakfast of a few of the leading men.

This is one of the last of the remarkable incidents that we find recorded of the mighty Apollonius. How he came to his end is quite uncertain, but some veracious chroniclers declare that he simply dried up and blew away. Others aver that he lived to the good old age of ninety-seven, and then quietly gave up the ghost at Tyana, where a temple was dedicated to his memory.

However that may be, he was subsequently worshiped with divine honors, and so highly esteemed by the greatest men of after days, that even Aurelian refused to sack Tyana, out of respect to the philosopher’s ashes.