Note 50 — SUFFOCATION.

This was the peine fort & dure of our ancient law, which was inflicted on prisoners who stood mute out of malice, or who feigned themselves mad, or challenged peremptorily more than the number of Jurors allowed by law, thus refusing their legal trial. “The manner of inflicting this punishment may be best found from the Books of Entries and other law books, all of which generally agree, that the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came, and put into some low dark room, and there laid on his back without any manner of covering, except for the privy parts, and that as many weights be laid upon him as he can bear and more, and that he shall have no manner of sustenance but the worst bread and water, and that he shall not eat the same day in which he drinks, nor drink the same day on which he eats, and that he shall so continue till he die.” Some authorities say till he answers. See 2 Hawk. P. C. 330. c. 30. § 16. 4 Bl. Com. p. 319. Jac. Law Dict. tit. Mute. The memory of this barbarous punishment remains “as a monument of the savage rapacity with which the lordly tyrants of feudal antiquity hunted after escheats and forfeitures,” for when the criminal died mute, the lord in some cases lost his escheat; (see 4 Bl. Com. 323). But its execution is no longer permitted by our laws. By Stat. 12 Geo. 3. c. 20, sentence may be passed on those who stand mute as if they had been found or pleaded guilty.