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New Environs of Ekaterinburg, Showing Road By Which the Bodies of the Members of the Imperial Family were Carried, and the Pit Where the Ashes Were Buried
235 visits
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The Romanovs were suffered to live. A German mission (ostensibly Red Cross) came to Ekaterinburg at the end of May to ascertain all about the life of the “residents of Ipatiev’s house,” as the Imperial prisoners were officially styled. These spies went straight to Berlin with their report. The Red Kaiser knew full well what torments were being endured by those whom he had professed to cherish, who after all were his kith and kin. He could have saved them at any time. But ... they would not be saved by him....
232 visits
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Image 9871
337 visits
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Guillotine traps should be baited with small pieces of Vienna sausage (Wienerwurst) or bacon. The trigger wire should be bent inward to bring the bait into proper position to permit the fall to strike the rat in the neck, as shown in the illustration.
171 visits
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Image 9567
166 visits
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Ford’s Theatre, where President Lincoln was assassinated
386 visits
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House where the President died
374 visits
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There is considerable evidence of "pottery hunting" by amateurs in the mounds of Oldtown, and it is said that several highly decorated food bowls adorned with zoic figures have been taken from the rooms. It appears that the ancient inhabitants here, as elsewhere, practised house burial and that they deposited their dead in the contracted position, placing bowls over the crania.
227 visits
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Genesis 4:8
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
325 visits
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Image 9076
796 visits
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In those days, when a man mourned he cut off his hair, painted his body with white clay, and threw away his moccasins. He also cut his flesh with a knife or some sharp weapon. Now when a man sought a vision from the gods, he wept and mourned, that the gods might have pity on him; and for this he went away from the village, alone, into the hills. So it happened, that Snake Head-Ornament, on his way to the hills, went mourning and crying past a field where sat a woman, his clan cousin, on her watch-stage. Seeing him, she began a song to tease him:
He said, “I am a young bird!”
If a young bird, he should be in his nest;
But he comes here looking gray,
And wanders about outside the village!
He said, “I am a young snake!”
If a young snake, he should be in the hills among the red buttes;
But he comes here looking gray and crying,
And wanders aimlessly about!
809 visits
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(From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.)
575 visits
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Image 8079
624 visits
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For the happily increasing class of tourists who are interested in archæology, let it be noted here that the chancel of this church contains the earliest monumental brass in the kingdom, the mail-clad effigy of Sir John D’Abernon, dated 1277.
Many of his race, before and after his time, lie here. The life-sized engraved figure of this Sir John, besides being the earliest, is also one of the most beautiful. Clad from head to foot in a complete suit of chain mail,his hands clasped in prayer, heraldic shield on one arm, his pennoned lance under the other, and his great two-handed sword hanging from a broad belt outside the surcoat, this is a majestic figure. His feet rest on a writhing lion, playfully represented by the engraver of the brass as biting the lance-shaft.
423 visits
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Image 7782
242 visits
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Image 7554
342 visits
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A rumour that he was dead reached the Macedonians, and they hastened to the palace, begging to be allowed to see their king once more.
Alexander was not dead, but he was too weak to speak, as one by one the soldiers were permitted to walk quietly past his bed. With an effort he looked at them as they passed, and feebly raised his hand in farewell.
‘After I am gone will you ever find a king worthy of such heroes as these?’ he murmured as they slowly filed out of the room.
Then he drew his signet ring from his finger and gave it to an officer, saying that he left his kingdom ‘to the best man.’ So the great king passed away at the age of thirty-three.
382 visits
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Stephen, one of the seven deacons of the church at Jerusalem, stoned without the gate of that city, by the Libertines, A. D. 34, shortly after the death of Christ.
282 visits
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Image 7059
130 visits
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Image 7045
137 visits
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James, the son of Zebedee, put to death with the sword, by Herod Agrippa, in Jerusalem, A. D. 45.
202 visits
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John the Baptist, son of Zacharias and Elisabeth, beheaded in the castle of Machærus, at the command of Herod Antipas, AD. 32.
173 visits
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This sort of punishment, being deemed in the highest degree ignominious , is only inflicted for crimes, which are regarded by the Chinese
government, as the most prejudicial to society ; such as conspiracy,assassination , committing any offence against the person of the Emperor, or attempting the life of any of the imperial family ; revolting, insurrection , striking a parent, or any other unnatural sort of crime. The malefactor, who is condemned to be beheaded, is made to kneel upon the ground, the board of infamy is taken from his back, and the executioner, by a single blow of a two - handed sword, strikes off his head with great dexterity. These headsmen , and indeed, the generality of inferior officers of justice in China, are selected from the soldiery, according to the custom of primitive barbarians ; neither is this employment considered more ignominious, than the post of principal officer of executive justice in other countries . Decapitation is held, by the Chinese, as the most disgraceful kind of death ; because the head, which is the principal part of a man , is separated from the body, and that body is not consigned to the grave as entire as he received it from his parents ..
If a great mandarin be convicted of any atrocious offence, he is executed in this manner like the meanest person . After the head is severed , it is frequently suspended from a tree, by the side of a public road ; the body is thrown into a ditch , the law having deemed it unworthy the respect of regular funereal rites .
When a sentence is submitted to the Emperor for his approbation, if the crime be of the first degree of atrocity , he orders the malefactor to be executed without delay ; when it is only of an ordinary nature, he
directs, that the criminal shall be imprisoned until the autumn, and then executed ; a particular day of that season being allotted for such ceremonies.
The Emperor of China seldom orders a subject to be executed , until he has consulted with his first law officers, whether he can avoid it, with out infringing on the constitution of his realm . He fasts for a certain
period, previous to signing an order for an execution ; and his imperial
majesty esteems those years of his reign the most illustrious and most
fortunate , in which he has had the least occasion to let fall upon his
subjects the rigorous sword of justice.
456 visits
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The usual capital punishments in China are strangling, and beheading. The former is the most common , and is decreed against those, who are found guilty of crimes, which , however capital, are only held in the
second `rank` of atrocity. For instance, all acts of homicide, whether intentional or accidental; every species of fraud, committed upon government : the seduction of a woman, whether married or single; giving abusive language to a parent, plundering or defacing a burying place ; robbing with destructive weapons : and for wearing pearls. It
would not, perhaps, be possible to form any probable conjecture of the motive, which has induced the Chinese legislators to attach the pain of death to the wearing of a precious gem . The fact is, therefore, only stated from the information of various writers, and remains to be explained by some future commentator.
Criminals are sometimes strangled with a bow -string, but on general occasions, a cord is made use of, which fastens the person to a cross, and one turn being taken round his neck , it is drawn tight by an athletic executioner.
Men of distinction ,are usually strangled, as the more honourable death ; and where the Emperor is inclined to shew an extraordinary mark of attention towards a mandarin , condemned to die, he sends him a silken
cord, with permission to be his own executioner .
485 visits
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The Ashtabula Disaster
432 visits
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The Old Bridge
416 visits
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The new bridge, with temporary underpinning
440 visits
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If mice are present in small numbers, as is often the case in lawns, gardens, or seed beds, they may readily be caught in strong mouse traps of the guillotine type. These should be baited with oatmeal or other grain, or may be set in the mouse runs without bait.
200 visits
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If mice are present in small numbers, as is often the case in lawns, gardens, or seed beds, they may readily be caught in strong mouse traps of the guillotine type. These should be baited with oatmeal or other grain, or may be set in the mouse runs without bait.
294 visits
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The Centralia Conspiracy
282 visits
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Australian Natives Burning their Dead
875 visits
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Among some of our western tribes of Indians the bodies of the dead are placed on scaffoldings of poles several feet high, and there left to the action of the elements. This practice had its origin in the absence of all tools suitable for digging in the earth, and possibly from a vague theory that the body of the deceased should be raised towards the home of the Great Spirit beyond the skies.
672 visits
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Besides the coffins themselves, some other curious features are found in the burial-places. The dead are commonly buried, not underneath the natural surface of the ground, but in extensive artificial mounds, each mound containing a vast number of coffins. The coffins are arranged side by side, often in several layers; and occasionally strips of masonry, crossing each other at right angles, separate the sets of coffins from their neighbors. The surface of the mounds is sometimes paved with brick; and a similar pavement often separates the layers of coffins one from another. But the most remarkable feature in the tomb-mounds is their system of drainage. Long shafts of baked clay extend from the surface of the mound to its base, composed of a succession of rings two feet in diameter, and about a foot and a half in breadth, joined together by thin layers of bitumen. To give the rings additional strength, the sides have a slight concave curve and, still further to resist external pressure, the shafts are filled from bottom to top with a loose mass of broken pottery. At the top the shaft contracts rapidly by means of a ring of a peculiar shape, and above this ring are a series of perforated bricks leading up to the top of the mound, the surface of which is so arranged as to conduct the rain-water into these orifices. For the still more effectual drainage of the mound, the top-piece of the shaft immediately below the perforated bricks, and also the first rings, are full of small holes to admit any stray moisture; and besides this, for the space of a foot every way, the shafts are surrounded with broken pottery, so that the real diameter of each drain is as much as four feet. By these arrangements the piles have been kept perfectly dry; and the consequence is the preservation, to the present day, not only of the utensils and ornaments placed in the tombs, but of the very skeletons themselves, which are seen perfect on opening a tomb, though they generally crumble to dust at the first touch.
421 visits
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The third kind of tomb, common both at Mugheir and at Telel-Lahm, is almost as eccentric as the preceding. Two large open-mouthed jars (a and b), shaped like the largest of the water-jars at present in use at Baghdad, are taken, and the body is disposed inside them with the usual accompaniments of dishes, vases, and ornaments. The jars average from two and a half feet to three feet in depth, and have a diameter of about two feet; so that they would readily contain a full-sized corpse if it was slightly bent at the knees.
Sometimes the two jars are of equal size, and are simply united at their mouths by a layer of bitumen (dd); but more commonly one is slightly larger than the other, and the smaller mouth is inserted into the larger one for a depth of three or four inches, while a coating of bitumen is still applied externally at the juncture. In each coffin there is an air-hole at one extremity (c) to allow the escape of the gases generated during decomposition.
461 visits
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The clay coffins, shaped like a dish-cover, are among the most curious of the sepulchral remains of antiquity. On a platform of sun-dried brick is laid a mat exactly similar to those in common use among the Arabs of the country at the present day; and hereon lies the skeleton disposed as in the brick vaults, and surrounded by utensils and ornaments. Mat, skeleton, and utensils are then concealed by a huge cover in burnt clay, formed of a single piece, which is commonly seven feet long, two or three feet high, and two feet and a half broad at the bottom. It is rarely that modern potters produce articles of half the size.
584 visits
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The clay coffins, shaped like a dish-cover, are among the most curious of the sepulchral remains of antiquity. On a platform of sun-dried brick is laid a mat exactly similar to those in common use among the Arabs of the country at the present day; and hereon lies the skeleton disposed as in the brick vaults, and surrounded by utensils and ornaments. Mat, skeleton, and utensils are then concealed by a huge cover in burnt clay, formed of a single piece, which is commonly seven feet long, two or three feet high, and two feet and a half broad at the bottom. It is rarely that modern potters produce articles of half the size.
512 visits
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Next to their edifices, the most remarkable of the remains which the Chaldaeans have left to after-ages, are their burial-places. While ancient tombs are of very rare occurrence in Assyria and Upper Babylonia, Chaldaea Proper abounds with them. It has been conjectured, with some show of reason, that the Assyrians, in the time of their power, may have made the sacred land of Chai the general depository of their dead, much in the same way as the Persians even now use Kerbela and Nedjif or Meshed Ali as special cemetery cities, to which thousands of corpses are brought annually. At any rate, the quantity of human relics accumulated upon certain Chaldaean sites is enormous, and seems to be quite beyond what the mere population of the surrounding district could furnish.
The brick vaults are found chiefly at Mugheir. They are seven feet long, three feet seven inches broad, and five feet high, composed of sun-dried bricks imbedded in mud, and exhibit a very remarkable form and construction of the arch. The side walls of the vaults slope outwards as they ascend; and the arch is formed, like those in Egyptian buildings and Scythian tombs, by each successive layer of bricks, from the point where the arch begins, a little overlapping the last, till the two sides of the roof are brought so near together that the aperture may be closed by a single brick. The floor of the vaults was paved with brick similar to that used for the roof and sides; on this floor was commonly spread a matting of reeds, and the body was laid upon the matting. It was commonly turned on its left side, the right arm falling towards the left, and the fingers resting on the edge of a copper bowl, usually placed on the palm of the left hand. The head was pillowed on a single sun-dried brick.
522 visits
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Anhai bowing before her father and mother. The Elysian Fields. From the Papyrus of Anhai (XXIInd dynasty)
1056 visits
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The weighing of the heart of the scribe Ani in the Balance in the presence of the gods.
1173 visits
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The soul of Rā (1) meeting the soul of Osiris (2) in Tattu, The cat (i.e., Rā) by the Persea tree (3) cutting off the head of the serpent which typified night.
1196 visits
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The Elysian Fields of the Egyptians according to the Papyrus of Nebseni (XVIIIth dynasty)
1144 visits
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The Elysian Fields of the Egyptians according to the Papyrus of Ani (XVIIIth dynasty)
1126 visits
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Horus, the son of Isis, leading the scribe Ani into the presence of Osiris, the god and judge of the dead; before the shrine of the god Am kneels in adoration and presents offerings.
1282 visits
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The oldest stones in order of dates on the hill are those of:
Edward Grey 1681
William Crowe 1683-4
Hannah Clark 1687
Thomas Cushman 1691
Thomas Clark 1697
The children of John and Josiah Cotton 1699
The stone of Nathaniel Thomas 1697
723 visits
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A despatch states that the Cambria Iron Company's plant on the north side of the Conemaugh River at Johnstown is a complete wreck. Until this despatch was received it was not thought that this portion of the plant had been seriously injured. It was known that the portion of the plant located on the south bank of the river was washed away, and this was thought to be the extent of the damage to the property of that immense corporation. The plant is said to be valued at $5,000,000.
644 visits
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The losses, however, are as nothing compared to the frightful sacrifices of precious human lives. During Sunday Johnstown has been drenched with the tears of stricken mortals, and the air is filled with sobs that come from breaking hearts. There are scenes enacted here every hour and every minute that affect all beholders profoundly. When brave men die in battle, for country or for principle, their loss can be reconciled to the stern destinies of life. When homes are torn asunder in an instant, and the loved ones hurled from the arms of loving and devoted mothers, there is an element of sadness connected with the tragedy that touches every heart.
686 visits
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The work of clearing up the wreck and recovering the bodies is now being done most systematically. Over six thousand men are at work in the various portions of the valley, and each little gang of twenty men is directed by a foreman, who is under orders from the general headquarters. As the rubbish is gone over and the bodies and scattered articles of value are recovered, the débris is piled up in one high mass and the torch applied. In this way the valley is assuming a less devastated condition. In twenty-four hours more every mass of rubbish will probably have been searched, and the investigations will be confined to the smoking wreck above Johnstown bridge.
648 visits
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A singular instance of the wagon and funeral-boat in combination has been found on the bandage of a mummy, now preserved in the collection of S. d'Athanasi.
It is supposed by some modern authors
that Herodotus, in speaking of the religious ceremonies in honor of Mars, as performed in the city of Pampremis, refers to this vehicle. Among other things, he tells us that the priests placed an image in a wooden temple, gilded all over, which they carried to a sacred dwelling; "then the few who were left about the image draw a four-wheeled carriage containing the temple and the image."
865 visits
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A very showy affair is found in the next illustra-tion, rivaling the mourning equipages of modern times. Among other figures appear emblems of stability and security on the side panels. In this instance the undertaker removed a portion of the paneling so as to expose the head of the mummy-case. It would seem from this, that the modern practice of showing a coffin through a glass side is of great antiquity. Indeed, we seldom find anything new that has not an antiquarian origin, thus verifying the words of the wise man, "There is no new thing under the sun."
911 visits
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In one instance, as in the figure, taken from a tomb in Thebes, — an attendant is shown, pouring some kind of a liquid from a jar upon the ground, over which the sledge is drawn, to facilitate its progress. Examples of this nature are frequently seen in Egyptian bass-reliefs, depicting the removal of heavy loads. On this sledge-hearse the mummy-case, enclosing the corpse, is distinctly observed. With characteristic tenderness, two females steady the mummy as it moves along over the rough surface of the ground; the priest, meanwhile, mounted in front, scroll in hand, recites a panegyric, or perhaps delivers a funeral oration in honor of the dead.
885 visits
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It need not be inferred from what we have written that all bodies were hidden away in the tomb. On the contrary, many were consumed on the funeral pile, some were buried in the earth, while others again, after they had come from the embalmer's shop, were kept in the house for years, until finally they were deposited in the catacombs. The mourning for a good king lasted the space of seventy days, during which the people sang hymns commemorating his virtues, reading their garments, and covering their heads with mud and dust, some three hundred persons of both sexes coming together twice each day to publicly sing a funeral dirge, the entire nation abstaining from meat and other dainties during the whole time. On the last day of mourning, or in some instances many months afterward, the time for sep ulture arrived. Supposing that an embalmed king is to be laid away, perhaps in a tomb on which a lifetime of preparation has been bestowed, the body is now brought out from the closet, where it has been carefully stored since the funeral ceremonies were performed, and given to the undertaker, who comes with a sledge-hearse, as shown in the engraving.
The several figures are thus arranged: in the center appear the sacred cows, decked with elegant blankets and ornamental head and neck gear, which last (of a peculiar pattern) is found at tached to the heads of all female animals, in Egyptian bass-reliefs, drag-ropes in this case being fastened to the horns, evidently " more for ornament than use," two attendants furnishing the motive-power, while the third acts as conductor. In the foreground are four more representatives of the genus homo. First, we notice the priest, as indicated by the peculiarity of his dress. He appears in the act of anointing the dead body with sacred oil, or some other liquid, from a ves sel of peculiar shape. Just in front of the priest, squatting near the earth, we find a mercenary mourner, her hair disheveled, her breasts exposed, and her hands fixed in the position most expres sive of grief, no doubt crying as sincerely as in hired mourning it has ever been done. Around the third figure centers the greatest interest, since it represents the dead dressed in cerements for the tomb, to which the body is now about to be carried. The fourth, supporting the corpse in a lean ing position, represents an at tendant, who, in all probability, officiates both as priest and undertaker.
924 visits
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Cart collecting dead bodies during the plague
463 visits
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The chief’s house, situated on top of a mound, overlooked the plaza area. The chief used the house as his living quarters as well as a reception area for visitors and subjects. The furnishings of the house included wooden beds covered with matting, and perhaps a wooden stump used as a stool. Reed or cane torches provided light. Servants waited on the chief, always keeping a respectful distance, and quickly meeting all of his needs. No one ever used the chief’s belongings or walked in front of him.
The chief was a highly honored and respected person, and his death was a time for great mourning. Ceremonies, dancing, and processions were part of the burial rituals that continued for several days. The chief’s wife, servants, and others who volunteered for the honor, were sedated and ritually strangled as part of the ceremonies. The bodies were placed on special raised tombs covered with branches and mud. After many weeks, the bones were removed and placed in baskets that were stored in the temple. Eventually, the bones were buried in a platform in the temple, or were buried in the mound when it was expanded. The deceased chief’s house was usually burned and might be covered with another layer of earth before the new chief’s house was built. The son of the dead chief’s sister would become the next ruler.
515 visits
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Socially, the Indian had less liberty than the white man. He was bound by customs handed down from his forefathers. He could not marry outside his tribe. He could not sit in whatever seat he chose at a council. He could not even paint his face any color he fancied; for a young who had won no honors in battle would no mor ehave dared to decorate himself like a veteran warrior than a private soldier in the United States army would venture to appear at parade in the uniform of a major-general.
Each tribe had a "totem", ot badge to designate it. The "totem" was usually the picture of some animal. The totem was also used as a mark on gravestones, and as a seal.
651 visits
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The Last Hours of Lincoln
1 Pres. LINCOLN.
2 Mrs. LINCOLN.
3 Vice Pres. JOHNSON.
4 Maj. RATHBONE.
5 Mr. ARNOLD. M.C.
6 P.M. Gen. DENNISON.
7 Sec. WELLES.
8 Atty Gen. SPEED.
9 Dr. HALL.
10 Dr. LEIBERMANN.
11 Secy. USHER.
12 Secy. McCOLLOCH.
13 Gov. OGLESBY.
14 Speaker COLFAX.
15 Dr. STONE.
16 Surg. Gen. BARNES.
17 Mrs. Sen. DIXON.
18 Dr. TODD.
19 Asst. Surg. LEALE.
20 Asst. Surg. TAFT.
21 Asst. Secy OTTO.
22 Gen. FARNSWORTH. M. C.
23 Sen. SUMNER.
24 Surg. CRANE.
25 Gen. TODD.
26 ROBT. LINCOLN.
27 Rev. Dr. GURLEY.
28 Asst. Secy FIELD.
29 Adjt Gen. HAYNIE.
30 Maj. FRENCH.
31 Gen. AUGER.
32 Col. VINCENT.
33 Gen. HALLECK.
34 Secy. STANTON.
35 Col. RUTHERFORD.
36 Asst. Secy. ECKERT.
37 Col. PELOUSE.
38 Maj. HAY.
39 Gen. MEIGS.
40 Maj. ROCKWELL.
41 Ex Gov. FARWELL.
42 Judge CARTTER.
43 Mr. ROLLINS, M. C.
44 Gen. MARSTON. M. C.
45 Mrs. KINNEY.
46 Miss KINNEY.
47 Miss HARRIS.
1289 visits
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From Joh. Wolfii Lect. Memorab. (Lavingæ, 1600.)
It will be seen by the curious woodcut from Baptista Mantuanus, that he consigned Pope Joan to the jaws of hell, notwithstanding her choice. The verses accompanying this picture are:—
“Hic pendebat adhuc sexum mentita virile
Fœmina, cui triplici Phrygiam diademate mitram
Extollebat apex: et pontificalis adulter.”
It need hardly be stated that the whole story of Pope Joan is fabulous, and rests on not the slightest historical foundation. It was probably a Greek invention to throw discredit on the papal hierarchy, first circulated more than two hundred years after the date of the supposed Pope. Even Martin Polonus (A. D. 1282), who is the first to give the details, does so merely on popular report.
1163 visits
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Death of General Johnston
910 visits
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Stone is very rare in Chaldea, and could be brought only at great expense from a distance. Hence all the buildings of earlier ages were built of bricks. o we read of the Tower of Babel, that "they had bricks for stone."
The outsides of the buildings were covered with burnt or kiln-dried bricks to keep out the rain. More elaborate specimens of their pottery appear in articles for domestic uses, and especially in their coffins.
760 visits
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Wool Merchants from Northleach Church
1013 visits
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Seizing that moment, a party of camp followers run forward with a couple of planks, which they throw over the moat to make a temporary bridge. They are across in an instant, and place scaling-ladders against the walls. The knights, following close at their heels, mount rapidly, each man carrying his shield over his head, so that the bare ladder is converted into a covered stair, from whose shield-roof arrows glint and stones roll off innocuous. It is easy to see that a body of the enemy might thus, in a few minutes, effect a lodgment on the castle-wall, and open a way for the whole party of assailants into the interior.
2010 visits
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Robert Braunche,of Lynn
1033 visits
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Monumental Brass of Alderman Field and his Son, a.d. 1474
1288 visits
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Illustration the sepulchral effigy in Westminster Abbey of John of Eltham, the second son of King Edward II., who died in 1334. Here we see first and lowest the hacqueton; then the hauberk of chain mail, slightly pointed in front, which was one of the fashions of the time
2546 visits
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John Fortey
1149 visits
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Funeral Service of a Hermit
1620 visits
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The woodcut represents the execution, in Paris, of a famous captain of robbers, Aymerigol Macel. The scaffold is enclosed by a hoarding; at the nearer corners are two friars, one in brown and one in black, probably a Franciscan and a Dominican; the official, who stands with his hands resting on his staff superintending the executioner, has a gown of red with sleeves lined with white fur, his bonnet is black turned up also with white fur. In the background are the timber houses on one side of the place, with the people looking out of their windows; a signboard will be seen standing forth from one of the houses. The groups of people in the distance and those in the foreground give the costumes of the ordinary dwellers in a fourteenth-century city.
1086 visits
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The number of Chinese going in the same direction as ourselves was very great, as the worshipping of the tombs had just begun. Most of these people were on foot, but some went along in chairs. They carried with them long strings of paper ingots, to burn at the tombs. These ingots, or mock-money, are done up like little sugar-loaves, and are strung on cord. I saw men carrying five or six such long strings of ingots from the end of their bamboos. They also had offerings of cake in red painted boxes, fire-crackers, and bright-coloured and white paper, the latter of which they stick in strips on the graves. I also saw some men carrying roasted pigs cooked whole, for offerings. The Chinese are too thrifty to leave these at the tombs ; they merely offer them, then bring them home and feast on them with their relations. All male members of a family must worship their ancestors' tombs yearly, and we met fathers taking their sons of all ages with them to the graves.
The tombs were soon on all sides of us ; they are in the form of a horse-shoe, and are built on the sides of the mountain in stone or asphalte. These belong to the rich ; the graves of the poorer class are simply marked by an upright stone or a conical mound of earth.
689 visits
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Etruscan painting of a Ceremonial Burning of the Dead
1012 visits
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Sainte-Geneviève, the patron saint of the Parisians, also perpetuated with her legend on the walls of the Panthéon, originally her church but now dedicated to the Grands Hommes of the nation, was born at Nanterre, near Paris, in 422, and guarded in the fields the flocks of her parents, Sévère and Gérontia.
2791 visits
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Filial piety in China extends beyond the grave. Every year at certain periods dutiful children assemble at the tomb of their parents or ancestors, to make oblations of flowers, or fruit, or pieces of gilt paper, or whatever else they consider as likely to be acceptable to the manes of the departed. Their mourning dress consists of a garment of Nanquin cotton, or canvas, of the coarsest kind. Some of the monuments erected over the dead are by no means inelegant; like their bridges and triumphal arches, they are very much varied, and made apparently without any fixed design or proportion. The semicircular or the horse-shoe form, like that in the print before which the mourner is kneeling, appeared to be the most common.
1136 visits
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Assasination of Edward the Martyr
432 visits
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For two years the wretched little colony struggled for life. La Salle was in sore distress. He knew he had many enemies among his men who would gladly take his life, but he hoped for help from France. No help came. It was plain to La Salle that he could save the suffering colony only by making his way to Canada. He therefore started out on January 12, 1687, with a party of seventeen men and five horses, on another long and dangerous journey through the dense forests—this time from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.
Travelling north, the party crossed the Brazos River and toiled onward to the Trinity River. But La Salle's men were tired of travelling through the forests, and some of them were thirsting for his blood. They were waiting only for a suitable opportunity to carry out their murderous purpose. On the morning of March 19th they lay in ambush, and shot him dead as he approached, probably not far from the Trinity River.
635 visits
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The fighting was stubborn and furious, and Wolfe was in the thickest of the fray. While he was leading a charge, a bullet tore through his wrist. Quickly wrapping his handkerchief about the wound, he dashed forward until he was for the third time struck by a bullet, this time receiving a mortal wound. Four of his men bore him in their arms to the rear, and wished to send for a surgeon; but Wolfe said, "There's no need; it's all over with me." A little later, hearing someone cry "They run; see how they run!" he asked, "Who runs?" "The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere!" Then said Wolfe in his last moments, "Now, God be praised. I will die in peace."
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Punishment by Fire
When a criminal had been condemned to be burnt, a stake was erected on the spot specially designed for the execution, and round it a pile was prepared, composed of alternate layers of straw and wood, and rising to about the height of a man. Care was taken to leave a free space round the stake for the victim, and also a passage by which to lead him to it. Having been stripped of his clothes, and dressed in a shirt smeared with sulphur, he had to walk to the centre of the pile through a narrow opening, and was then tightly bound to the stake with ropes and chains. After this, faggots and straw were thrown into the empty space through which he had passed to the stake, until he was entirely covered by them; the pile was then fired on all sides at once
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Originally, decapitation was indiscriminately inflicted on all criminals condemned to death; at a later period, however, it became the particular privilege of the nobility, who submitted to it without any feeling of degradation. The victim--unless the sentence prescribed that he should be blindfolded as an ignominious aggravation of the penalty--was allowed to choose whether he would have his eyes covered or not. He knelt down on the scaffold, placed his head on the block, and gave himself up to the executioner. The skill of the executioner was generally such that the head was almost invariably severed from the body at the first blow. Nevertheless, skill and practice at times failed, for cases are on record where as many as eleven blows were dealt, and at times it happened that the sword broke.
Public Executions.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Latin Work of J. Millaeus, "Praxis Criminis Persequendi:" small folio, Parisis, Simon de Colines, 1541.
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Member of the Brotherhood of Death, whose duty it was to accompany those sentenced to death
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And his Confessor, at Bordeaux in 1377, by order of the King of England's Lieutenant. Froissart's Chronicles. No. 2644, Bibl. nat'le de Paris.
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A Morai [sacred place ] at Kayakakoua
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Image 162
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Image 161
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