to guide the poor sightless beings to their homes. It is no wonder that we find it recorded that Samuel, King of the Bulgarians, fell dead on beholding the shocking spectacle.

It is now our painful duty to record that our own native land has also been the scene of this barbarous practice, for we find that in 1067 William the Conqueror, having acquired the greater part of England by the sword, marched westward to reduce those parts, and approached the city of Exeter with a large army. The citizens seem to have been divided as to the policy of resistance. The leading burghers of the pacific faction repaired to the Norman camp, besought the pardon of the king, and having promised fealty, and that they would receive him with open gates, gave such hostages as he required. But when they returned to their fellow-citizens they found themselves outvoted, and the majority resolved upon an obstinate resist

ance.

William, who was then encamped four miles from the city, pushed forward with five hundred horse, but finding the gates shut, and the walls and bulwarks manned with a great force, he gave orders for his whole army to advance, and caused the eyes of the unfortunate hostages to be put out in front of the city gates. The sequel is soon told. After several days' gallant defence, Exeter surrendered, and the inhabitants received favourable terms.

It would seem that blinding was one of the favourite punishments of William the Norman, for in addition to the case already recorded, historians relate that a revolt having taken place in 1074 of various Norman and Saxon nobles, William, after their total defeat near Cambridge, put out the eyes of many of the insurgents; and here it may be interesting to note that Waltheof, the last of the Saxon nobility, was executed in consequence of this abortive insurrection. The evil example of the Conqueror was followed by his

son William Rufus, who during his reign put out the eyes of Count D'Eu, who was accused of treason; he also blinded Donald Blane, the ex-king of Scots.

Another of the sons of William the Conqueror (Henry I.) put out the eyes of the bard Lake de Barré; and he enacted that any purveyor found guilty of a crime against the country should be mulcted in nose, eyes, hands, or feet; and it is even said that Henry destroyed the sight of his own brother Robert, the unfortunate Duke of Normandy.

In the reign of King Stephen, Wimund, an English monk, sometime Bishop and pirate of the Isle of Man, being captured in a foray into England, was deprived of sight and imprisoned for life.

The plan of this work will not permit of a full list of the cases in which blindness has been inflicted as a punishment, and we shall therefore content ourselves by naming a very few more out of the great number to be found scattered through the histories of various countries.

So sanguinary a disposition had Isaac Angelus, Emperor of Constantinople at the end of the twelfth century, that whenever he captured a general who had revolted from him, he caused him to be deprived of sight, and, as insurrections were of frequent occurrence, the number who suffered from his barbarity in this respect was exceedingly great; at length, however, he reaped the due reward of his cruelties, for he was himself blinded and dethroned by his brother Alexis.

In the wars between Richard I. of England and Philip of France, prisoners on both sides were frequently deprived of sight.

In 1261 the young Emperor of Constantinople, John Lascarus, was deprived of sight by the usurper Alexis Strategopulus.

Michael Palæologus, Emperor of Constantinople, having in 1273 determined to unite himself to the

Romish Church, put out the eyes of many of his subjects who refused to renounce the Greek faith.

One of the circumstances which preceded the Swiss war of Independence in 1307 bears on this subject, and it is thus related by Chambers. "As William Tell and his wife sat one evening in front of their cottage, they saw their son rush towards them crying for help and shouting the name of old Melchthal. As he spoke Arnold's father (Melchthal) appeared in view, led by his grand-daughter Clair, and feeling his way with a stick. Tell and his wife hastened forward, and discovered, to their inconceivable horror, that their friend was blind, his eyes having been put out with hot irons.

"The hero of Bürglen, burning with just indignation, called on the old man to explain the fearful sight, and also the cause of Arnold's absence. The unfortunate Melchthal seated himself, surrounded by his agonized friends, and immediately satisfied the impatient curiosity of Tell.

"It appeared that that very morning the father, son, and grand-daughter were in the fields loading a couple of oxen with produce for the market-town, when an Austrian soldier presented himself, and having examined the animals, which appeared to suit his fancy, ordered their owner to unyoke the beasts preparatory to his driving them off. Adding insolence to tyranny, he further remarked that such clodpoles might very well draw their own ploughs and carts. Arnold, furious at the man's daring impertinence, was only restrained by his father's earnest entreaties from sacrificing the robber on the spot; nothing, however, could prevent him from aiming a blow at him, which broke two of his fingers. The enraged soldier then retreated; but old Melchthal, who well knew the character of Gessler (the Austrian Governor), immediately forced Arnold, much against his inclination, to go and conceal himself for some days in the Righi.

a rare circumstance with the Swiss Alps-and is oneof the most conspicuous hills of Switzerland. In form a truncated cone, with its base watered by three lakes —Lucerne, Zug, and Zurich-this gigantic hill is pierced by deep caverns, of which two are famousthe Bruder-balm and the hole of Kessis-Boden. Scarcely had Arnold departed in this direction, when a detachment of guards from Altorf surrounded their humble tenement, and dragged old Melchthal before Gessler, who ordered him to give up his son. Furious: at the refusal which ensued, the tyrant commanded the old man's eyes to be put out, and then sent him forth blind to deplore his misfortunes."

Andronicus, the eldest son of John Palæologus, Emperor of Constantinople, having in 1367 conspired in connection with Sais, or Kontuses, the son of Amurat, Sultan of the Turks, to dethrone their parents and to possess themselves of the two empires, being captured, the Sultan deprived his own son of sight, and ordered John Palæologus, the Christian Emperor of Constantinople, to follow his example. The Emperor obeyed the Turkish mandate by depriving his son of sight, and also indulged his own evil passions by putting out the eyes of his grandson.

About the year 1490, the last king of the Moors, in Spain, having been expelled from that country by the victorious troops of Ferdinand and Isabella, took refuge with his countrymen in Africa, but being seized and brought to trial by the ruler of Fez, for alleged misconduct while a king, he was cruelly blinded, and wandered about the city of Fez with a label attached to his dress, to the following effect:-" View here the deplorable sovereign of Andalusia!"

About the middle of the sixteenth century Ivan the Terrible, Czar of Muscovy, after the completion of a church of great magnificence in Moscow, ordered the eyes of the architect to be put out, lest he should ever construct another building similar in beauty.

The great Persian conqueror, Nadir Shah, in 1743, added to the many cruelties which disgraced the latter part of his reign by depriving his bravest and eldest son, Rezâ Kouli, of sight; and another Shah of the same country, Aga Mahommed Khan, at the end of the eighteenth century, was also found cruel enough to inflict blindness upon his own brother, and to issue orders that the entire population of the city of Kerman, which he had captured in war, should either be put to death or deprived of sight.

In Tartary, even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century, putting out eyes was common as a punishment until the conquest of that country by the Russians, put an end to the practice; and we deem the subject of sufficient interest to transcribe here the description of this horrid cruelty given by an eminent traveller in Central Asia, Arminius Vanbery. This author, writing in 1864, of what he witnessed at Samarcand in Turkistan, says, "In the first court I found about three hundred highlanders, prisoners of war, covered with rags. They were so tormented by the dread of their approaching fate, and by the hunger which they had endured for several days, that they looked as if they had just risen from their graves.

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They were separated into two divisions, namely, such as had not yet reached their fortieth year and were to be sold as slaves, or to be made use of as presents, and such as from their rank or age were regarded as Aksakals (greybeards) or leaders, and who were to suffer the punishment imposed by the Khan. The former, chained together by their iron collars, in numbers of ten to fifteen, were led away; the latter submissively awaited the punishment awarded. They looked like lambs in the hands of the executioners.

"While several were led to the gallows or the block, I saw, how by a sign from the executioner, eight aged men placed themselves down on their backs on the earth; they were then bound hand and foot, and the