ealm of
the known was very small. They had no idea of law and system, of cause
and effect. They early began evolving religious ideas. The
manifestations of nature, the mystery of birth, the fear of death, the
phenomena of dreams, the growth and harvesting of crops--all of these
were beyond their understanding. They peopled the earth with gods to be
propitiated and appeased. Everything was the act of a special
providence. From early times religion and witchcraft furnished the
chief subjects for the criminal code.

The penalties for the violation of the code were always severe,
generally death, and by the most terrorizing ways. No other crime could
be so great as to arouse the anger of the gods, and naturally no other
conduct should demand so severe a penalty as calling down the wrath of
the gods. This would fall not only upon the offending man, but upon the
community of which he was a part. Even as man developed in knowledge and
civilization, this sort of crime continued to furnish the greater
proportion of victims and the most cruel punishments. Torture of the
most fiendish sort was evoked to catch offenders and extort confessions.
Difference of religious opinions was the worst crime. The inquisition
became an established thing. Sometimes a nation was almost wiped out
that heretics should be killed and heresies destroyed. The heretic was
the one who did not accept the prevailing faith. The list of victims of
punishment on account of religion, witchcraft, sorcery and kindred laws
has in the past no doubt been larger than for any other charges.

This kind of laws always called out the greatest zeal in their
enforcement. To the religious enthusiast nothing else was of equal
importance. It involved not only the life of man on earth but his life
through all eternity. Our statutes today are replete with such crimes,
but the punishments have been lessened and, as a rule, communities will
not enforce them. But laws against blasphemy, working on Sunday, and
Sunday amusements of all sorts, are still on the books and enforced in
some places. A large organization and an influential and aggressive part
of the Christian Church are insisting that these laws shall be enforced
to the limit and that still others shall be placed among the statutes of
the several states.

The methods of inflicting the death penalty have been various, the
favorite ways being burning, boiling in oil, boiling in water, breaking
on the rack, smothering, beh