Horrible mutilations?

Life and limb are held of such small value that severe mutilation is the penalty of absurdly slight transgressions, or is imposed at the arbitrary displeasure of the master, while more serious offenses are punished by death in atrocious form: as when the victim is buried alive with stakes driven through his quivering body.

Other trees readily fill up a vacancy occasioned by the loss of a branch, and may suffer considerable mutilation without losing their beauty, because an invariable proportion is not necessary to render them pleasing objects of sight.

It has been argued, by disciples of the Darwinian theory of inherited effects from continued mutilations, that a long process of breeding from tailless animals has resulted in producing puppies naturally bob-tailed, and it is difficult, on any other hypothesis, to account for the fact that many puppies are so born.

The American Indians attach all the glory or shame of a battle to the acquisition or loss of scalps, and one of their practices was to remove those who had fallen, at every hazard, in order to escape the customary mutilation.

Hence those many acts of deliberate mutilation, that have taken place on the slightest occasions: hence those many acts of inferiour, though shocking, barbarity, that have taken place without any occasion at all: the very slitting[065] of ears has been considered as an operation, so perfectly devoid of pain, as to have been performed for no other reason than that for which a brand is set upon cattle, as a mark of property.

Except in the slave States, where the national institutions have been subjected to deplorable mutilations in fact, every citizen can express his opinion and maintain it openly, without meeting any other obstacle than the contrary opinion, which is expressed with equal freedom.

One of the most disgusting mutilations on record is that practised by the Indians of British Columbia, who insert a piece of bone in the lower lip, which, gradually enlarged, makes it at last project three inches.

All the party wore their hair tied up behind, and each had suffered the loss of one of the front teeth in the upper jaw: and some had endured an extraordinary mutilation; apparently in exaggeration of an ancient Jewish rite.

Later she remembered that night in Russia when she and others hid under the corn in a barn while the mob searched over their headsa moment ghastly with impending mutilation and deathand she felt that this night was more terrible than that.

What the colored poet in the United States needs to do is something like what Synge did for the Irish; he needs to find a form that will express the racial spirit by symbols from within rather than by symbols from without, such as the mere mutilation of English spelling and pronunciation.

This seemed outrageous mutilation at first to the composer, and the librettist took it with still more violence; threatening for a time to withdraw his book completely.

There is not now any permanent mutilation of the person practiced as a mourning ceremony by them.

This profane mutilation of the divine right of the presbyteries excited the alarm and execration of every orthodox believer.

"But they that have come hitherto have come in a state of brutal nakedness, scandalous mutilation" (having cast their inheritance from the past away), "and impartial bystanders say sorrowfully, 'Return rather; it is better even to return!'" Houndsditch was a Jew's quarter, and old clothesmarket in London, and was to Carlyle the symbol of the alarming traffic at the time in spiritualities fallen extinct.

" "A shameful mutilation has been committed upon this poor defenseless girl!"

"Abominably revolting," "hideous," "filthy," "disgusting," "atrocious"such are usually the words of observers in describing these shocking mutilations.

Whether from a desire to exhibit their anti-aristocratic sentiments, or from innate Vandalism, or from a childish wish to exhibit independence by doing mischief, the said statue is the pistol-mark for the students, who have exhibited their skill as marksmen by its total mutilation, in spite of all remonstrances from the authorities.

It is out of my power now to stand between it and the American public: all I can do is to rescue it from unauthorized mutilations and make the best of a jejune job.

How long will it be before we shall learn that for every wound which betrays itself to the sight by a scar, there are a thousand unseen mutilations that cripple, each of them, some one or more of our highest faculties?

Then suddenly with astonishing force the mind is flung through and beyond the memories of the awful mutilation by the amazingly condensed phrase: jacet ingens litore truncus avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus.

Thus it was long believed that what was known as the "terrible rite" (finditur usque ad urethram membrum virile)see Curr I., 52, 72was practised as a check to population; but surgeon-general Roth (179) has exploded this idea, and made it seem probable that this rite is merely a senseless counterpart of certain useless mutilations inflicted on females.

Five men were charged, and the evidence showed that a most brutal mutilation of a gamekeeper's hand had been inflicted.