The rack was an engine with which to torture a sup posed criminal to extort a confession of his crime from him, together with the names of his supposed accomplices. It consisted of an oblong frame of wood, with four beams, raised from the ground, on which the witness was stretched and bound; cords were attached to his extremities, and they were gradually stretched by means of a lever and pulleys, until the evidence was forthcoming, or the limbs of the sufferer were dislocated. The rack was used in England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and according to Lord Coke it was first introduced into the Tower by the duke of Exeter, constable of the Tower, in 1447, from whence it derived the name, "the duke of Exeter's daughter." It is mentioned by Holinshed, in 1467, and in the time of King Henry VIII, it became a common appliance for the torture of prisoners of the Tower. Punishment by the rack took place during the reign of the Tudor sovereigns, by warrant of the council, or under the sign-manual, but in 1628, on the murder of the duke of Buckingham, by Felton, when it was proposed in the privy council to put the assassin to the rack, to compel him to divulge his accomplices, the judges resisted the proceeding, because it was contrary to the English law. While it has never been used by the Americans, it was used by the French in Montreal, and is preserved as a relic of the French rule in that country.2 Of course, when subjected to such torture, the witness was liable to state whatever was desired to be disclosed by him, hence Portia's reference to the enforced statements of Bassanio. 1 Bouvier's Law Dictionary. 2 Taylor's Elem. Civil Law. The wrists and ankles of the witness were fastened by cords attached to rollers at the end of the frame work, on which he was stretched. These rollers were then drawn in opposite directions, until the body of the victim was raised to a level with the frame; if he refused to disclose what was asked him, or desired to be obtained, in response to the interrogatories submitted, the rollers were further moved until at last the bones were drawn from the sockets. (Americana.) When pressed for an answer, Falstaff is made to say, in 1' Henry IV (Act II, Scene IV): "Fal. What, upon compulsion? No, were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you, on compulsion." Edmund Mortimer, in 1' Henry VI, referring to his imprisonment, said: "Mor... Even like a man new haled from the rack, So fare my limbs with long imprisonment." Scene V.) (Act II, With others, the Cardinal Beaufort, upbraided the good Duke of Gloster in 2' Henry VI, as follows: "Car. The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags are lank and lean with thy extortions." (Act I, Scene III.) Referring to the fortitude of his tool, John Cade, the duke of York, in 2' Henry VI, said: "York. Say, he be taken, rack'd and tortured: I know no pain they can inflict upon him, will make him say-I mov'd him to those arms." (Act III, Scene I.) Cressida and Pandarus, in the colloquy over Troilus, in Troilus and Cressida say: "Pan. I can't choose but laugh, to think how she tickled his chin;-Indeed, she has a marvelous white hand, I must needs confess. Cres. Without the rack?" (Act I, Scene II.) Paulina refers to torture by the rack, in Winter's Tale, when she asks Leontes: "Paul. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying," etc. (Act III, Scene II.) "Ant. Antony tells Eros, in Antony and Cleopatra: That which is now a horse, even with a thought, The rack dislimns." (Act IV, Scene XII.) Lear refers to the rack, when he replies to Albany as follows: "O most small fault, How ugly did'st thou, in Cordelia show: Which, like an engine wrenched my frame of nature, From the fix'd place." (Act I, Scene IV.) On the death of Lear, the Earl of Kent is made to say: "Kent. Vex not his ghost:-0, let him pass; he hates him, That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer." (Act V, Scene III.) Othello tells Iago, after he has thoroughly aroused his jealousy: "Avaunt: be gone: thou hast set me on the rack." (Act III, Scene III.) Sec. 83. Usurer. "Shy. Let him look, to his bond: he was wont to call me usurer;-let him look to his bond: he was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy ;----let him look to his bond." 2 Shylock's expressed animosity toward Antonio, because he was "wont to call me usurer," is in strict accordance with the history of the subject of usury, in England. The first usurers, in England, were the Jews. During the Crusades, when everything but military glory and religious zeal, was neglected by the Britons, the Jews, who had come from Normandy, after the Conquest, became the chief money lenders in England. On account of their rapacity, the Jewish money lenders were banished from England, near the close of the thirteenth century. The church then attempted the handling of usurers, punishing them, "for the good of their souls," by censures and excommunications, and from the fifteenth until the middle of the nineteenth century, in England, the subject of usury was a fruitful source of legislation. The injunction of Moses, against the exaction of usury,' which In the XXXIII' Sonnet, it is said: With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace." (5, 8.) The rack is referred to in the CXXVI' Sonnet, in these lines: "If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill." (5, 8.) 1 Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene II. Webb, Usury, Sec. 9. D Kelly, on Usury, p. 17. Epist. Paul Bleseus, 156, p. 242. Roll. Abr. Tit. Usurers. 6 Webb, Usury, p. 8. Lev. XXV., 35-37; Deut. XXIII., 19-20. the Christian would naturally follow, is no doubt intended, in the reference, by Shylock, to the loaning of money as a "Christian courtesy," but the Jew could claim the benefit of the dispensation of the Mosaic law, as it permitted such transactions with strangers.1 1 Ante idem. 1 Plow. 85; Fleta, lib. 2, c. 27. The Romans and Athenians attempted at divers times, the regulation of usury, without giving satisfaction to the people (IV Gibbon, Rome 368); the policy of maintaining some restrictions upon money lenders is still prevalent, but usury is not now regarded with the same feeling that all who practice it are iniquitous, as they were formerly regarded. Webb, Usury, p. 13. Speaking of the prejudice against usurers, in both ancient and modern times, Lord Bacon, in his Essay (Civil and Moral, No. 41) said: "Many have made witty invectives against usury. They say it is the pity the Devil should have God's part, which is the tithe; that the usurer is the greatest Sabbath breaker, because his plow goeth every Sunday; . . that the usurers breaketh the first law, that was made for mankind, after the fall, which was, in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum; that it is against nature for money to beget money and the like. Few have spoken of usury usefully." But comparing money lenders with others whose cupidity for getting rich, is not materially different, Judge Lumkin, for the Georgia Supreme Court said: "They may be as inexorable as Shylock and the more selfish and callous, from the fact that they earn their living by dealing indirectly in money, the love of which is the root of all evil. But observation has convinced me that all who will be rich, whether usurers or land-jobbers, or speculators of any other class, . . fall, not only into divers temptations and snares, but soon become almost, if not altogether, regardless of the means by which they seek to attain their end." Gloster tells the Bishop of Winchester, in 1' Henry VI: "Glo. Thou art a most pernicious usurer." (Act III, Scene I.) And the fool said: "Fool. I think, no usurer but has a fool Sec. 84. Plea of forfeiture. "Sale. Never did I know a creature, So keen and greedy to confound a man: Forfeitures have always been regarded with odium by the courts. This fact was evidently known and appreciated by the Poet, for in this verse, he presents the most hideous plea for a forfeiture that could well be conceived, of a hated Jew, urging a forfeiture against a gentle and lovable person, in such manner as to encompass his life. to his servant: My mistress is one and I am her fool." (Act II, Scene II.) Alcibiades tells the Senate, on refusal of his plea for the life of his soldier client, in Timon of Athens: "Alcib. Banish me? Banish your dotage; banish usury, that makes the Senate ugly." (Act III, Scene V.) Timon of Athens, in the forest tells Alcibiades: "Tim. Pity not honour'd age, for his white beard, He's an usurer." (Act IV, Scene III.) Suffer us to A citizen, in Coriolanus, said: "1 Cit. famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers." (Act I, Scene I.) In the sixth Sonnet, in urging the natural use of beauty, the Poet thus refers to usury: "That use is not forbidden usury, Which happies those that pay the willing loan." The incarceration of Southampton, is compared to the exaction of usury for the debt due by the Poet, in the CXXXIV' Sonnet: "The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use, And sue a friend came debtor for my sake." (9, 11.) 'Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene II. 24 Kent's Comm. 81, 82, 424. |