Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1893 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

South Carolina has a new liquor law that is to become more or less effectual on the first of July. While it is not exaetly a prohibition law, those now engaged in the business of dispensing alcoholic beverages will of necessity have to seek other employment after that date, unless they have a “pull” and can manage to be retained as employes of the commonwealth. State authority will assume full sway over Bacchanalian revels, at least to the extent of supplying the animation heretofore deemed necessary for a successful revel, and the profits of all sales are to be turned into the State treasury to relieve the burden of the downtrodden taxpayer. Liquor dealers now engaged in the business will test the constitutionality of the law, and the outcome of the legal contest will be awaited with interest. In the meantime Gov. Tillman and other State officials have been visiting northern cities with a view of purchasing a supply of liquors and other necessary articles for the new venture, which by the law has become a part of their official duties.

AMERICAN FANATICS. Religious fanaticism that takes the form of self-inflicted castigation and torture of various descriptions has heretofore been supposed to be confined to the ignorant subjects of faroff Eastern despotisms, where life has fewer attractions, and where poor humanity seeks some recompense for the ills endured on earth by blindly following cruel creeds, in the hope “that they more surely lay hold upon the glories of the future state by the abuse and laceration of their own miserable bodies. But it seems that a branch of these “Les Flagellantes,” or “Penitentes,” as they call themselves in this country, has been established at Taos, in northern New Mexico. The order was established in Spain three hundred t>r four hundred years ago. The custom of self-whipping has long existed in the order, but our New World fanatics have elaborated the system and men are now actually nailed to the cross. On a hill some distance from their meetinghouse is a cross to represent Calvary. The crowning event takes place on Holy Friday, when the anniversary of Christ’s death is celebrated with a drama of the crucifixion. The victim, who is a volunteer, is generally tied to a cross, but in former years many have been actually spiked to the beams. Within the past decade four Penitentes have been killed in this manner at Taos. Public sentiment, however, is strongly against the practice, and in most cases it is omitted from the ceremony. Many victims have, however, survived the ordeal, and exhibit their scars with religious pride. Many perish even from the modified form of tying, as now practiced, although the cross is seldom allowed to stand in an upright position more than half an'hour with a victim hanging by the cords. That such practices are conducted by full-fledged voters of the great republic will be a surprise to many, and give rise to the belief that a line should be drawn that would exclude from participation in the rights of free and intelligent citizens such a mass of monumental ignorance and superstition.