Boston Telegraph.

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LUDICROUS PUNISHMENT. In the first volume of the "Library of American Biography, conducted by Jared Sparks," the following incident in the life of Ethan Allen shows the character of the government in Vermont in 1774, when the inhabitants were resisting the claims of New-York to jurisdiction over their territory. A Committee of Safety was the highest judicatory, and Allen was Col. Commandant of the territory. If any person presumed to act under the authority of the State of N. York, he was immediately arraigned and judgement pronounced against him, in the presence of many persons, by which he was sentenced to be tied to a tree and chastised "with the twigs of the wilderness" on his naked back, to the number of two hundred stripes, and immediately expelled from the district, and threatened with death if he should return, unless specially permitted by the convention.

"In the midst of these signs, the mode of punishment was sometimes rather ludicrous than severe. In the town of Arlington lived a doctor who openly professed himself a partizan of New-York, and was accustomed to speak disrespectfully of the Convention and Committees, espousing the cause of the New-York Claimants, and advising people to purchase lands under their title. He was admonished by his neighbors, and made to understand that this tone of conversation was not acceptable, and was requested to change it, or at least to show his prudence by remaining silent. Far from operating any reform—these hints only stirred up the ire of the courageous doctor, who forthwith armed himself with pistols and other weapons of defence, proclaiming his sentiments more boldly than ever, setting opposition at defiance, and threatening to try the full effects of his personal powers and implements of warfare on any man who should have the temerity to approach him with an unfriendly design. Such a boast was likely to call up the martial spirits of his opponents, who accordingly came upon the doctor at an unguarded moment and obliged him to surrender at discretion. He was then transferred to the Green Mountain Tavern, in Bennington, where he was arraigned before the Committee, who, not satisfied with his defence, sentenced him to a novel punishment, which they ordered to be put in immediate execution.

"Before the door of this tavern, which served the double purpose of a court-house and an inn, stood a sign-post twenty-five feet high, the top of which was adorned with the skin of a Catamount, stuffed to the size of life, with its head turned towards New-York, and its jaws distended, showing large naked teeth, and grinning terror to all who should approach from that quarter. It was the judgment of the court that the contumacious doctor should be tied in a chair and drawn up by a rope to the Catamount, where he was to remain suspended two hours—which punishment was inflicted in the presence of a numerous assemblage of people, much to their satisfaction and merriment. The doctor was then let down and permitted to depart to his own house."

Salem Observer, April 12, 1834.

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From the "Essex Register," Feb. 19, 1820.

Burning of a Negro in Georgia.

From the Augusta (Geo.) Chronicle, Feb. 1.

Execution.—On Friday last two negro men, named Ephraim and Sam, were executed in conformity to their sentence for the murder of their master, Mr. Thomas Hancock, of Edgefield District, South Carolina; Sam was burnt, and Ephraim hung, and his head severed from his body and publicly exposed. The circumstances attending the crime for which these miserable beings have suffered, were of a nature so aggravated as imperiously demanded the terrible punishment which has been inflicted upon them.

The burning of malefactors is a punishment only resorted to when absolute necessity demands a signal example. It must be a horrid and appalling sight to see a human being consigned to the flames. Let even Fancy picture the scene,—the pile, the stake, the victim! The mind sickens, and sinks under the oppression of its own feelings. What then must be the dread reality! From some of the spectators we learn that it was a scene which transfixed in breathless horror almost every one who witnessed it. As the flames approached him, the piercing shrieks of the unfortunate victim struck upon the heart with a fearful, painful vibration; but when the devouring element seized upon his body, all was hushed. Yet the cry of agony still thrilled in the ear, and an involuntary and sympathetic shudder ran thro' the crowd. We hope that this awful dispensation of justice may be attended with such salutary effects as to forever preclude the necessity of its repetition.

COMMUNICATION.

If any Massachusetts man can read the above without shuddering, and experiencing alternate emotions of horror and indignation, his heart must be harder than a millstone and colder than the ice of the poles. We know not the particular circumstances of the crime for which this poor wretch suffered, but as far as we can learn from the public prints, it was for the murder of his Master. The probability is there was some provocation; for such dire deeds are not perpetrated without a strong and powerful impulse. It is however of no consequence; no matter what was his crime, such a punishment was abominable, and could not be inflicted, even if the laws permitted it, in our State. If that monster who committed the Stoneham murder in cold blood, impelled solely by avarice, had not put an end to his own life, but had awaited his conviction, had been sentenced to such a punishment, although he would have merited, perhaps more than any other offender who has appeared in our times, the greatest sufferings, yet such a sentence could not be carried into effect. The people would have risen at once, animated by one sentiment, and without the least previous concert have prevented it. Every man in the Commonwealth, waiving all distinctions of condition or age, would have been seen, without consulting his neighbour or considering consequences, putting a new flint in his musket and girding on his sword. Thank God! our feelings and love of order and obedience to proper authority can never be put to such a trial; for the moment we became free, and created our own political institutions, we made it a fundamental article of our Constitution of Government that "no magistrate or court of law shall inflict cruel or unusual punishment." In Georgia such a punishment would not be inflicted upon a white man for any crime; and in the name of Heaven, who deserves the greatest punishment for offences,—the white man, who is instructed in the principles of religion and morality, and is therefore justly accountable for his actions, or the negro, who is kept by the policy of the laws and the power of public opinion in a state of absolute ignorance of his duties, lest he should obtain a knowledge of his rights? D.

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Singular account from the "Salem Gazette," April 13, 1824.

ARREST OF THE DEAD.

The United States Gazette says:—

"While the papers from the south and the west are bringing back to us the report from Mr. Degrand's paper of the attachment of a dead body in Boston, the Eastern papers are bringing us assurances of the total illegality of any such act, and a contradiction of some of the important parts of Mr. Degrand's tale of horror. At the time of the first appearance of this story in our city, a gentleman of information assured the public through the medium of our columns that any such act was unlawful. The Salem Gazette appears to think that no act of the kind was ever lawful in Massachusetts. The Boston Courier states that in Feb., 1812, the legislature of Massachusetts passed a law making it highly penal for any civil officer to take the body of any deceased person, and the writer who furnishes this information says that 'he never heard that any such act of barbarism was ever attempted in that Commonwealth,' but that the law was enacted to guard against the possibility of such an occurrence, by a mistake in the application of the terms, 'we command you to take the body of A.B.' &c.

"This writer undoubtedly knows better than we both the laws and customs of his own state. But we have some recollections of an event of this nature transpiring in the southeastern part of Massachusetts. If we have not forgotten the events (or remembered some that never took place), a Sheriff in Barnstable county, we think in Brewster or Dennis, attached the body of a deceased debtor on its way to the grave, about the year 1811. A circumstance that fixes this event the more firmly in our mind is that it transpired about this season of the year, the time of the gubernatorial election in that State, and was used as a subject of reproach to one of the political parties; and we incline to believe that this act, or, if it never took place, the report of it (for it was talked of), gave rise to the law mentioned in the Courier.

"It is proper, in concluding these remarks, to state that to attach a dead body in Massachusetts is now against the law; and if the act ever took place which is detailed by Mr. Degrand, it was done by the advice of an ignorant attorney."

We are enabled to give an accurate statement of the event to which the editor of the U.S. Gazette above alludes; we copy it from a publication made at the time:—

"On the 20th October, 1811, Capt. Chillingsworth Foster, jun., AEt. about 41 years, departed this life; on the same day Benjamin Bangs, Esq., of Harwich, with one Mr. Scotto Berry, of the same place, called at the house of the deceased for payment of a sum of about one hundred and thirty dollars, due said Bangs, and requested the father of the deceased to give him his security, said Bangs well knowing the parent to be in low circumstances, and about seventy-five years old, and the mother about the same age. The father refused to comply, stating his inability to answer so great a demand without suffering immediate distress. The said Bangs then declared that if he did not comply, it was in his power to arrest the body of the deceased. The father still refused, and Bangs left the house; and a most distressed one it was, this being the last son out of three, left these aged parents, the other two being lost at sea, or died.

"The Monday following was appointed to have the deceased buried, when Col. Jonathan Snow appeared as Sheriff, with a writ to serve on the body. Here the melancholy scene commenced, a part of the relations being assembled, with the aged parents convulsed in sorrow; no one can paint their feelings but those who have children and are denied them the right of Christian burial. The usual ceremonies on such occasions were however performed, and an appropriate prayer was delivered by the Rev. John Simpkins, and the funeral procession formed and proceeded with the corpse about one and a half mile, and very near to the spot of the grave, when the said Sheriff arrested the coffin, without any service on the body, and it was set down in the middle of the highway nearly abreast of said Bangs' dwelling house, and forbid proceeding any further. A large company who followed, with the mourners, soon after retired, and left the officer in charge of the body. After lying in this situation for some time, one of the Grand Jurors ordered it out of the high road; this was complied with by the Sheriff, by placing it under the window of the said Bangs, and about sunset still further removed it into Bangs' dwelling-house. By this inhuman proceeding the aged parents were deprived of seeing their last and only son buried, as were the widow of the deceased and five children. So distressing a scene never was witnessed in this place, and perhaps not in the most barbarous nations. Between seven and eight of the clock, the same evening, the body was buried by a few individuals, and by the consent of said Benjamin Bangs, Esq., after he had inflicted all the wounds he could on the feelings of the poor grey-headed parents and their relations."

The barbarity and illegality of this conduct of B. Bangs, Esq. (an influential democrat of that day), were viewed with indignation from all quarters. The statute of Feb., 1812, on this subject was not passed to render illegal the arrest of a dead body of a debtor, for that was always illegal, but its object was to fix the punishment, instead of leaving it to the discretion of the Courts. Many undoubtedly recollect the instance at Portland several years before, in which a debtor who was on the limits was suddenly taken sick and carried out of the limits, where he died. It was then decided to be the law that the debtor's bond was not broken unless his body was out of the limits by his own agency and will.

So disinterring dead bodies of men was always a misdemeanor, but in 1815 a law was passed by our General Court to fix the penalties.

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The case of Stephen Merrill Clark is remembered by many people in Salem and its vicinity.

Supreme Judicial Court.

At the present term of this Court in Salem, Andrew Dunlap, John Foster, and Solomon Whipple, Esqrs. were admitted Counsellors, and Asa W. Wildes, Esq. an attorney of said Court.

Capital Trial.—On Tuesday Stephen Merrill Clark, a lad about 15 years of age, was indicted for the crime of ARSON alleged to have been committed in Newburyport, was arraigned the same day, and pleaded not guilty. The day for his trial is not yet fixed.—The Court assigned him Leverett Saltonstall and John G. King, Esquires, for his counsel on his trial.

Salem Observer, Nov. 4, 1820.

Clark was subsequently convicted of the crime for which he was tried, and executed upon Salem Neck in 1821. He had made a confession of his guilt; but considering his youth, and the circumstances of his having been instigated by others, as was believed, to the commission of the crime, many humane people thought there should have been some mitigation of the punishment.

THE END