But Rabbi
Yehudah says this was degrading, and in some cases they placed the
culprit's head upon the block and struck it off with an ax. Some one
remarked to him that such a death is more degrading still.
The sentence of strangling was carried out thus:--They fixed the
criminal up to his knees in manure, and having twined a hard cloth
within a soft one round his neck, one witness pulled one way and the
other pulled in an opposite direction till life was extinct.
_Sanhedrin_, fol. 42, col. 2; fol. 49, col. 2; fol. 52, cols. 1, 2.
The above, which has been translated almost literally from the
Talmud, may serve to remove many misconceptions now current as
to the modes of capital punishment that obtained in Jewry.
In further illustration of this topic, we will append some of
the legal decisions that are recorded in the Talmud,
authenticating each by reference to folio and column. Examples
might be multiplied by the score, but a sufficient number will
be quoted to give a fair idea of Rabbinic jurisprudence.
If one who intends to kill a beast (accidentally) kill a man; or if,
purposing to kill a Gentile, he slay an Israelite; or if he destroy a
foetus in mistake for an embryo, he shall be free; i.
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