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Content. Innovation there as elsewhere is the frightful
word – wisdom of ancestors – sacred institutions – happy
constitution, the terms of delusion. Thus it is that prisoners
in Switzerland have been induced to confess by long
& severe privations – have been kept for weeks erect in the
same position, without being allowed to sit or to lye down –
one instance is given of suicide resulting from the
sufferings of the prison, – & all this without existing
laws to justify or to allow such arbitrary powers.†
But what makes this stage of things still worse is
that the torture was abolished in Switzerland by a Decree
of the Helvetique Republic in 1798. In 1799 it appeared
by an official communication from the Minister of Justice
that in many Cantons midwives were compelled to retard the delivery
of women pregnant with illegitimate children, to when render till they
should confess who was the father. Inveterate habits still
continue to employed a minor torture till it that of limiting the
peasantry of nourishment, – but Alas! when Switzerland
recovered her freedom it was deemed a necessary part of
it to return to her old errors, & the torture in some form
or other is still administered in some several of the Cantons.
Identifier: | JB/110/133/007 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 110.
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sir john bowring |
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