invalids, and aged
were under all circumstances to be spared, and mills and ploughs were
not to be injured. But it is not by the laws themselves, but by the
administration of them, that we can judge of the peculiar
characteristics of a period.

The punishments were in themselves severe. With the Swedes,--for the
embezzlement of money intended for the hospitals or invalid soldiers,
the wooden horse with its iron fittings was awarded, or running the
gauntlet (for this hardy fellows were hired to take upon them the
punishment), or loss of the hand, shooting, or hanging. For whole
divisions,--the loss of their banners, cleaning the camp and lying
outside it, and decimation. In the beginning of the war many of the old
Landsknecht customs were maintained, for instance, their criminal court
of justice, in which the law was decided by the people through select
jurymen. And before the war, together with this, court-martials had
been introduced. During the war a military tribunal was organized
according to the modern German method, under the presidency of the
advocate-general, and the provost-marshal superintended the execution.
But even in punishments there was a difference between the army and the
citizens and peasants. The soldier was put in irons, but not in the
stocks or in prison; no soldier was ever hanged on a common gallows, or
in a common place of execution, but on a tree or on a special gallows,
which was erected in the city for the soldiers in the market-place; the
old form by which the delinquent was given over to the hangman was thus
expressed: "He shall take him to a green tree and tie him up by the
neck, so that the wind may blow under and over him, and the sun shine
on him for three days; then shall he be cut down and buried according
to the custom of war." But the perjured deserter was hanged to a
withered tree. Whoever was sentenced to death by the sword, was taken
by the executioner to a public place, where he was cut in two, the body
being the largest and the head the smallest portion. The provost and
his assistant also were in nowise dishonoured by their office; even the
avoided executioner's assistant, the "_Klauditchen_" of the army, who
was generally taken from among the convicts, and who was allowed to
choose between punishment and this dishonourable office, could, if he
fulfilled his office faithfully, become respectable when the banner was
unfurled; he could then receive his certificate like any other