TRIAL BY ORDEAL 



country which would in no way lead one to expect such 

 magnificent mendacious audacity! 



For the whole of the preceding statements about Antiaris 

 is pure romance. The inner bark of young trees, when made 

 into coarse garments, produces an extremely painful itching, 

 whilst the dried juice is a virulent arrow poison. 



Hellebore and Aconite were the favourite poisons of the 

 Marquise de Brinvilliers and other specialists of the Middle 

 Ages. The Christmas Roses or Hellebores were known to 

 be poisonous fourteen hundred years before the Christian 

 era, and are still used in medicine. Aconite, which has 

 a tuberous root-stock, is dangerous, for it is occasionally 

 eaten in mistake for the horse-radish, to which it has a faint 

 resemblance. All kinds of aconite are poisonous. That of 

 one of the Indian species is used to tip the arrows employed 

 in shooting tigers. 



Trials by ordeal were very common in ancient times. The 

 theory was that an innocent person was not injured by 

 certain drugs, which, however, proved immediately fatal to 

 the guilty. 



Such trials at one time were customary in almost every 

 part of the world. They were supposed to be perfectly just, 

 so that no man could be held guilty of the death of those 

 who succumbed. In practice, however, they were almost 

 invariably corrupt. The Tanghinia venenifera of Mada- 

 gascar was regularly used in ordeals, and is probably still 

 employed by certain tribes. The seeds are exceedingly 

 poisonous, but, if the authorities wish the accused person 

 to escape, a strong emetic is mixed with the powdered seeds, 

 and the poison has no time to act. This, however, is seldom 

 the case, for in any savage nation no one who is popular 

 and in good esteem with the king or other people in authority 



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