An Old House.
Doughty scrappers were they ever, those old Jutes. Doubtless there was reason for the Ribe justice that was proverbial throughout the days when each town was a law unto itself. “‘You thank God, sonny,’ is an old saw that has come down to this day, ‘that you weren’t punished by Ribe law,’ said the old woman, when she saw her son hung on the Varde gallows.” Varde was the next town, a little way up the coast. The symbol of that justice was an iron hand over the town gate which, tradition said, warned any who might be disposed to buy up grain and food-stuffs to their own gain, that for “cornering” the means of living, in Ribe a man had his right hand cut off. Good that the hand was never nailed on Trinity Church or on the Chicago Board of Trade, else what a one-handed lot of men we should have there and in Wall Street! Whether that was the real purpose of it or not, the Old Town was ruled with an iron hand indeed in those days. Witness the report, preserved in its archives, of the conviction of a woman for stealing the hand-iron which her thieving husband carried off with him when he broke jail. She filed it off and threw it into a neighbor’s yard, and not only she, but the neighbor, too, was convicted of theft. And stealing was a hanging matter. Stealing less than two dollars’ worth of property took a man to the gallows straight; but a woman, “for decency’s sake,” was buried alive in the gallows hill. For murder, counterfeiting and adulteration of honey,—why specially honey, I do not know,—and for eloping with another’s wife, a man’s head was chopped off with the big sword that still hung in the Town Hall. There were holes in the end of it, so that it might be weighted and made to “bite.” The bigamist was merely turned out of town and mulcted in half his belongings. But even the iron hand did not stop brawling, and other measures had to be adopted. A man was accused of knocking another on the head with a spear,—prodding was the fashion of murder only,—but legal evidence was lacking. Nevertheless, the “jury of the North-gate” found him guilty on the principle that for an eye an eye was due, and he was sentenced to pay damages to the injured man, to the King, and to the town, and to stand committed “until such time as he catches another in his place.” And he in jail!
The Iron Hand.
It seems almost jolly by comparison, certainly it has a more modern, not to say familiar sound, to find another jury acquitting a malefactor in the face of convincing evidence of his guilt upon grounds that seem delicately suggested in the question from the bench why they, the jurymen, “had demanded a keg of beer of the prisoner.” The record mentions one obstinate juryman, perhaps the original prohibitionist, who entered an ineffectual protest against the verdict.
With all their staid solemnity there is a comic vein in some of these old records. As, for instance, when Jep Bennedsen, appearing to prosecute a horse thief, swears that “the dappled mare which is here present, he bought of Anders Munk and it is God’s and his own horse.” Or, when a man charged with the theft of a neighbor’s axe proceeds to swear “on his soul and salvation and his uplifted hand, and asks God to curse him and push him in under the foot of Lucifer if he ever had the axe”; then, suddenly reflecting, adds, “Wait; if I did, I will give it back to him.” But the musty pages in which these facts are set down with minutest care betray no appreciation of their humor.
The stern old Ribe justice had but a leg and a half left to stand on, as it were, in my day. The effective police force of the town consisted of two able-bodied night-watchmen and a beadle with a game leg, but with a temper and an oaken staff that more than made up for his other defects. In ordinary times, always excepting New Year’s Eve, when it was the privilege of the Old Town to cut up as it saw fit, this was quite sufficient to preserve the public peace, for brawling as an occupation had long ceased, and crime was almost unknown. The commotion that was caused by a real burglary when I was a little lad can therefore be understood. As a matter of fact there was nothing very alarming about the crime. The thief had merely forced a door, that was fastened after the simple fashion of the day and place with a wooden whorl, and taken some money from an open drawer; but he had cut his hand in doing it, and there were smears of blood on the wall that made the mystery ever so much more dreadful to us all. To cap the climax, it was public property he had taken, the King’s money, for it was the custom-house he had robbed. The whole community was aroused, and the town council met promptly to consider the emergency. It is fair to state that it distinctly rose to it. The records of that meeting are still in existence. The business in hand, so they state, being to catch the thief, it was suggested by a member that this could not be done while the watchmen clattered about at night in wooden clogs and cried the hours; for so they gave warning to any evil-doer who might be lurking around. To this the meeting agreed, and it was resolved that they must henceforth cease bawling and put on boots—and rubbers. The sum of four daler was voted to equip the force with these police accoutrements, and was duly entered in the budget of the town to be raised by taxation.
A Watchman.