{RIDDELL] CANADIAN STATE TRIALS 337 
of them coming from more than 30 miles distant before daybreak, so as not to miss 
the spectacle of a hanging. 
- There was no cruelty (so far as appears) in the arrest or imprisonment of McLane. 
He had a fair trial, and no jury could do other than convict. The presiding Judge 
pronounced the only sentence known to the law and possible for him. The drawing 
to the gallows was a very common sight in London then and for long after; and the 
executioner was not cruel; he mercifully evaded the law by allowing McLane to hang 
until he was dead (the “drop” which breaks the neck though it had been tried was 
not in common use till long after this time.) 
What is to be the punishment for treason will depend upon the view taken of 
the object of punishment, but one guilty of this crime should not complain of the 
most severe form of punishment. He has undertaken to originate or continue civil 
conflict, which strikes at the root of all authority and may be expected to bring wounds 
agony and death to hundreds and thousands. 
The English punishment for treason was brutal, but less so than that of most 
nations. Torture, breaking at the wheel, dismemberment by wild horses and the like, 
were excluded. Of courseour milder age would not permit even such horrors as were 
a commonplace of old; but even in her worst days England could not have endured 
the sight of 
“Tuke’s iron crown and Damien's bed of steel.” | 
I do not think that anyone whose opinion is of value will ever differentiate 
this case of treason from those before it or near the time, and charge great or unusual 
cruelty here. 
