he slightest change was observable in the eyes, the mouth,
feet, or hands of the corpse, the murderer was conjectured to be
present, and many innocent spectators must have suffered death. "When a
body is full of blood, warmed by a sudden external heat, and a
putrefaction coming on, some of the blood-vessels will burst, as they
will all in time." This practice was once allowed in England, and is
still looked on in some of the uncivilized parts of these kingdoms as a
detection of the criminal. It forms a solemn picture in the histories
and ballads of our old writers.

Robertson observes, that all these absurd institutions were cherished
from the superstitious of the age believing the legendary histories of
those saints who crowd and disgrace the Roman calendar. These fabulous
miracles had been declared authentic by the bulls of the popes and the
decrees of councils; they were greedily swallowed by the populace; and
whoever believed that the Supreme Being had interposed miraculously on
those trivial occasions mentioned in legends, could not but expect the
intervention of Heaven in these most solemn appeals. These customs were
a substitute for written laws, which that barbarous period had not; and
as no society can exist without _laws_, the ignorance of the people had
recourse to these _customs_, which, evil and absurd as they were, closed
endless controversies. Ordeals are in truth the rude laws of a barbarous
people who have not yet obtained a written code, and are not
sufficiently advanced in civilization to enter into the refined
inquiries, the subtile distinctions, and elaborate investigations, which
a court of law demands.

These ordeals probably originate in that one of Moses called the "Waters
of Jealousy." The Greeks likewise had ordeals, for in the Antigonus of
Sophocles the soldiers offer to prove their innocence by handling
red-hot iron, and walking between fires. One cannot but smile at the
whimsical ordeals of the Siamese. Among other practices to discover the
justice of a cause, civil or criminal, they are particularly attached to
using certain consecrated purgative pills, which they make the
contending parties swallow. He who _retains_ them longest gains his
cause! The practice of giving Indians a consecrated grain of rice to
swallow is known to discover the thief, in any company, by the
contortions and dismay evident on the countenance of the real thief.

In the middle ages, they were acquainted with _sec