operated upon. Dr. J. B. Wright, then of Jyepore, describes a class of "naturally born" Eunuchs called Khojas. In them "the urine is voided painlessly through a minute aperture just above the symphysis pubis, in the abdominal mesial line. This orifice is, in many cases, surmounted by a small organ similar in appearance and position (?) to the female clitoris or to a miniature penis." Their pelves are described as being very wide. These people are in great request as the custodians of Zenanas. It would appear from the above account that these persons suffer from congenital deficiency of the anterior wall of the bladder and of the symphysis pubis, with more or less imperfect developement of the genitals. In Europe, however, such cases are of very rare occurrence, and it would be difficult to imagine that a class of such unfortunates could be collected, except by a search throughout the whole population of India.* This subject will again be referred to in the chapter on Unnatural Crime. It is stated that there is, among the public singers and dancers of this country, a class of gelded and infibulated women. I met with a description of these persons, in an English Medical Journal, many years since; but cannot now refer to the authority. This allusion to the subject may, however, lead to further investigation.† * Dr. Ebden's notes will appear in the Indian Annals of Medical Science for April 1856, I trust that he will pardon my anticipating the publication of facts which the cause of humanity demands should not be hidden. Nearly all the practices of Mutilation employed by the natives of India have been known in Europe, and even in England, during the last six or seven centuries. There can scarcely be a doubt, if the testimony of Matthew Paris be reliable, that the elder brother of Henry the First was blinded by the application of heat, or by some other means equally effectual. It will be found, in Chamberlayne's Anglia Notitia, that amputation of the right hand by a cleaver furnished by the king's yeoman of the kitchen, was long the punishment of striking within the precints of the king's court. William Duke of Devonshire barely escaped it, in the reign of James the Several important questions are not unfrequently proposed to medical witnesses, in cases of wounding, with regard to The Relative Position of the Parties, when the wound was inflicted. Some months since, I was called upon to attend a thief, who had been seized and wounded. From the position and character of his wounds, on the feet, knees, buttocks, and backs of the hands, I at once suggested my conviction that he had been wounded with a sword while lying on the ground, with his hands and feet raised to protect his body. QUESTION OF POWER TO INFLICT WOUNDS. There are several cases in the Reports where it was inquired,-whether prisoners whose hands were contracted by leprosy or by cicatrices, were capable of wielding a deadly weapon. This question was generally answered in the affirmative. I find two rather recent cases in the Reports in which Blind Men were found guilty of killing their wives for infidelity. One of these cases has been already cited at p. 289 (note.) The prisoner was completely blind of one eye, the sight of the other was so greatly impaired that he appears to have been incapable of work. He killed the woman by blows on the neck with a sword. Here, of Second, by the payment of a fine of ten thousand pounds. The loss of the offending hand was formerly the first punishment of an assassin. Damien, Ravilliac, Felton, all suffered this. The practice is still common in Italy. By ancient forest law, the convicted deer-stealer lost a thumb, and thus became a "poltroon," (pollice truncatus,) unfit to carry arms. The cutting off the ears of Prynne, Leighton and Bastwick, after they had been nailed to the pillory, was an event of direful portent in English History. The slitting of a gentleman's nose by order of the Duke of Monmouth, at Whitehall Stairs, gave origin to the Coventry Act. The punishment of Abelard (Cir. 1120) is well known; and it is scarcely necesssary to do more than allude to the refinement of cruelty which has generally accompanied the execution of a traitor in England. Castration is said to be still the punishment which the Law awards to a Negro, who is found guilty of a rape in the Slave States of America. course, it was a matter of importance to ascertain what degree of vision remained. In the other case, the murderer was entirely blind,-according to the evidence of the native doctor and others, he had been so for years. He confessed freely that, -his wife having admitted that a criminal intimacy existed between herself and a man for whom she worked, and who, she said, had asked her to live with him, aud not to remain with a blind man,-he, at midnight, killed her, while she was sleeping, with a bill or gurasa, inflicting no less than nine wounds, one of which completely severed the vessels of the neck. The next morning he told the chowkeedar what he had done.* In one of the Reports we find it questioned, whether a lad, 12 or 13 years of age, was physically capable of cleaving the skull of a person of his own age, and of cutting the side of the neck to the spine. This was answered in the negative, upon consideration of the prisoner's slight muscular development, and the lightness of the weapon. Cases of deliberate murder, by children from 12 to 14 years of age, are, however, not rare in the criminal records of this country.† In one case, a girl, who appeared not to have reached the age of puberty, and was declared by her parents to be only nine years and a few months old, was found guilty of drowning another child in a rivulet, not a span deep, for the sake of her ornaments.‡ In 1852, a girl "nine years and three months old," was found guilty of murdering her husband's niece, a child of six, by killing her with repeated blows of a heavy stick, scratching her face afterwards with a knife. She was sentenced to imprisonment for life.§ A very remarkable case in illustration of this question occurred in Assam, in 1853: A girl, "a mere child of 10 or * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 11th July 1853, p. 840. § Nizamut Adawlut Reports, vol. ii., part 2 of 1852, p. 45. 11 years," confessed to have taken a recently sharpened dhao in both her hands, and to have struck her husband two blows on the head with it. The deceased, who was a strong healthy man, received two wounds on the head, from which the brain protruded, his little finger had also been severed from his right hand. He died on the following day. The weapon produced was a dhao, one cubit and eleven fingers in length, including the handle, with a blade, two and a half fingers wide, and weighing eleven chittacks, or 22 ounces. The girl was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.* Instances very frequently occur in the records in which mere children are proved to have taken active parts in assisting older criminals in the commission of murderous acts. In 1852, a woman was convicted, at Akyab, of the murder of her husband. Mr. Mountjoy found three wounds on the head of the deceased, one of which, fracturing the occipital bone, was sufficient to have caused death; the head had also been nearly severed from the body by repeated blows, and the back was one mass of shocking wounds, such as might have been caused by the dhao produced, which weighed about two pounds and a half. The Commissioner remarked that it might appear surprising, and almost incredible, that a small and apparently weak female, such as the prisoner, should be capable of inflicting the deep and deadly wounds described by the Civil Surgeon. But the women in the villages of Arracan are generally employed in cutting up fire-wood for domestic use, and they thereby acquire a great facility in using the dhao, or long heavy knife. The habit of pounding paddy with a heavy pestle, in a large wooden mortar, also gives them considerable strength in the arm.f Nizamut Adawlut Reports, vol. iii., part 2, p. 57. See also the case of a girl, 10 or 12 years old,-who had certainly not reached the age of puberty, who killed her husband by blows on the head with a dhao.-Ibid, October 16th 1854, p. 467. † Ibid, vol. ii., part 1 of 1852, 329. BLOOD MARKS. Natives wounded in affrays, &c., are always careful to bring all the clothes which have become stained with their Blood, as evidence of the severity of the injuries which they have received. It is generally suspected that, in many of these cases, the Blood of a fowl is used to enhance appearances. I do not know, however, that such has been proved to be the fact in any instance. Since the tests for distinguishing the Blood of a human being from that of one of the lower animals,-as those proposed by M. M. Barruel, Taddei and others,-cannot avail in evidence upon criminal cases, it must, of course, rest with the police to show, as far as possible, whence Blood-stains to be subjected to examination have been derived. The Chemical Examiner can only be expected to state whether the matter found on a weapon, garment, or other object, is Blood or not; and he may, in certain cases, also be able to suggest whether the effusion has taken place before or after death.* It may be worthy of remark that it would appear that, in the generality of cases occurring in the North-West where the tulwar or other cutting weapon with which a murder has been committed has been missing, it has been at length found in a neighbouring Well. In Bengal, the readiest place of concealment is either a Tank or the Thatch of a hut. In a case tried in the North-West Provinces where a person had evidently been killed by sword wounds, it was held by the Sessions Judge to be a strong additional cause of suspicion against certain of the accused parties that no sword was found * Mr. Baynes mentions that great weight is attached by the natives of this country to the evidence of Blood Stains. A washerman is brought forward who deposes in the most confident manner that "the stain on that cloth is from blood;" if it has even been imperfectly washed, he is equally positive; if any trace remain, he can tell "it is blood."-Hints on Medical Jurisprudence, p. 48. |