Today’s Pointed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Few instances of peine forte et dure (pressing to death) have been reported as having taken place in America, though doubtless they occurred. One incident was recorded in Salem when, in 1692, Giles Cory was charged with witchcraft, and subsequently pressed to death.
A macabre variation of peine forte et dure was practised in India in the 19th century. A small sharp stone was tied on top of the criminal’s head, and a larger, heavier stone was then secured on top of it. Even weightier boulders were then added, until eventually the combined weight drove the pointed stone into the victim’s skull.
Culled from: Rack, Rope and Red-hot Pincers
Arcane Excerpts: The Consequences of Self-Pollution!
Here’s some more sound advice from What A Young Boy Ought To Know (1897) by Sylvanus Stall. Throughout the book, Sylvanus is having a conversation with a young boy named Harry.
Part III.
What are the Consequences in Boys of the Abuse of the Reproductive Organs.
CYLINDER XI.
Origin of the Different Names of the Sexual Sin.—Tell of the Character of the Sin.—The Class of Boys in Greatest Danger.—Need of Proper Information.—An Important Safeguard.—The Moral Sense the First to Suffer.—Vice Begets in the Heart Rebellion against God.—The Vicious Most Liable to Doubt God and Become Infidels.—Unbelief and Infidelity Symptoms of Sexual and other Sins.
MY DEAR FRIEND HARRY: No boy can toy with the exposed portions of his reproductive system without finally suffering very serious consequences. In the beginning it may seem to a boy a trifling matter, and yet from the very first his conscience will tell him that he is doing something that is very wrong. It is on this account that a boy who yields to such an evil temptation will seek a secluded, solitary place, and it is because of this fact that it is called the “solitary vice.” Because the entire being of the one who indulges in this practice is debased and polluted by his own personal act it is also called “self-pollution.” It is also called “Onanism,” because, for a similar offense, nearly four thousand years ago, God punished Onan with death (Genesis xxxviii. 3–10). This sin is also known by another name, and is called “masturbation,” a word which is made from two Latin words which mean “To pollute by the hand.”
Each of these words tells something of the vile character of this sin. But words are scarcely capable of describing the dreadful consequences which are suffered by those who persist in this practice. I do not believe, my dear friend Harry, that you have become a victim of this destructive vice, and I would be glad to believe that you have never accidentally learned or have been deliberately taught to engage in it. Knowing, however, the dangers to which, like all boys, you are exposed, and also appreciating the fact that intellectual boys, because of a more highly wrought nervous organization and because of keener sensibilities, are much more liable to become addicted to this vice than boys of a lower grade of intellect and with less sensitive bodies, I regard it important that you should be as intelligent and well informed upon this subject as upon any other. This is necessary so that, by knowing in advance the character and consequences of such a course, you may avoid the evil into which even men, as late in life as twenty-five and thirty years of age, sometimes fall because of ignorance. In this as in other things, “To be forewarned is to be forearmed.” Every young boy should be properly informed upon this subject, for even those who may be safely guarded from defilement of thought and life from outward influences are nevertheless exposed to those inward physical conditions which may produce local irritation and disease, and where such a diseased condition is ignorantly permitted to continue, masturbation soon becomes a fixed habit, and is likely to be practiced with such violence that idiocy, and even death, may, and often does come speedily. Nothing so much favors the continuance and spread of this awful vice as ignorance, and only by being early and purely taught on this important subject can the coming boys and men be saved from the awful consequences which are ruining morally, mentally, and physically thousands of boys every year.
As I have already said, one of the first things which a boy does who undertakes to practice this vice is to seek solitude. From the very first his conscience disapproves, and so he cannot engage in the evil which he proposes to himself without violating his moral sense. Indeed, his moral nature is the first to suffer. This, my dear boy, is an important fact, and if you were ever to fall a victim to this vice, you would find that even with the first sense of guilt there would come a spirit of rebellion against God and against your parents. You would soon begin to call into question the wisdom and goodness of God. Your pleasure in good books, in religious instruction, in the Sunday-school, the Bible, the Church, and all holy things would rapidly diminish. You would soon find in your heart a rebellious feeling which would lead you to be disobedient, cross, irritable, and reproachful. You would begin to lose faith in all that is good, and as you persisted in your sin, you would grow less and less like Jesus and more and more like Satan. In other words the moral nature is the first to suffer from sexual vice, and whenever you hear a boy or man boasting of his doubts and railing against God, against the Bible, against purity and virtue, you may rest assured that his feeling grows out of some solitary or social, some secret or open sin or vice which has affected his moral nature, and is degrading and debasing his heart.
If this effect upon the moral nature were the only result of this solitary vice, the consequences would be sufficient to turn any intelligent and thoughtful boy from the practice. But its effects upon the mind and body are also of the most serious nature, and of these I will speak to you to-morrow night.
Anticipation! – DeSpair
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
November 20th. More sick were examined and passed out. At midnight the cry went around “Fall in 1st and 2d divisions,” and they packed up and went way.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost