412 CARSON— THE TRIAL OF ANIMALS AND INSECTS. 



teenth century. Carlo D'Addosio,^ a Neapolitan writer of recent 

 times, enlarges the list to one hundred and forty-four prosecutions, 

 resulting in the execution or excommunication of the accused, and 

 extends the time from the year 824 to 1845 5 while our fellow 

 countryman, Mr. E. P. Evans, in an exhaustive " Chronological List 

 of the Prosecution of Animals from the Ninth to the Twentieth 

 Century," begins with the case of moles in the valley of Aosta in 

 824, and closes with that of a fierce dog who aided murderers in 

 their crime in Switzerland and was tried as an accomplice as late 

 as 1906.* 



An analysis of Mr. Evans' Hst gives these results. Out of one 

 hundred and ninety-six cases he assigns, 3 to the ninth, 3 to the 

 twelfth, 2 to the thirteenth, 12 to the fourteenth, 36 to the fifteenth, 

 57 to the sixteenth, 56 to the seventeenth, 12 to the eighteenth, 9 to 

 the nineteenth and i to the twentieth centuries. The scenes were 

 laid in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Rus- 

 sia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, England, Scotland, Canada and 

 Connecticut, the last named being in the days of Cotton Mather. 

 This wade distribution of time and territory shows how persistent 

 and prevalent the practice was, and corrects any notion of its being 

 due to local passion or territorial superstition. The most numerous 

 cases were in France, but this is due to a more careful study of an- 

 cient records by French antiquarians than by those of other nations. 

 The two English cases were those of a dog and a cock, the Scotch 

 case, that of a dog, the Canadian case, that of turtle-doves, and the 

 Connecticut cases those of a cow, two heifers, three sheep and two 

 sows. 



As early as i486, in a curious book, printed by Anthony Neyret, 

 there is a classification of beasts or animals into those which are 

 sweet beasts (bestes doulces) such as the hart and hind, and stenchy 

 beasts (bestes puantes) such as pigs, foxes, wolves and goats, to 

 which in time were added of domestic animals, such as asses, bulls, 

 cows, dogs, horses and sheep, those of a ferocious and vicious dis- 

 position. These all fell under the jurisdiction of the civil and crim- 



3 " Bestie Delinquent]," Napoli, 1892. 



■* " The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals," N. 

 Y., 1906. 



