On Thursday night last week, when the remains of Steinberg.
the murderer, Irtre buried in the poor-ground of Clerkettwell parish, a peculiarly curious cere- mony was observed, in lieu of the old custom of driving a stake through the body. The shell containing the deceased woe laid by the side of the grave; the body was Wien out by two men, one at the head and another at the feet ; they held it horizontally over the grave, when they gave it a turn and it fell to the bottom, with the fat,: downwards, resting on the arms. When the earth was partly put over the body, one of the assistants struck the earth immediately over the deceased's skull, many timer', as hard as he could, with it tremendous iron mallet, with a view as we understood, to smash the head. Many persons conceived that a stake was being driven through his lady; but they were un- deceived by the information that it was mere matter of form at the burial of a fel° de se.—Newspaper Paragraph.
This " peculiarly curious ceremony " of breaking the skull of a felo de se, is surely not authorized by the statute that repealed the old barbarous law, which required a stake to be driven through the body. It must have been a gratuitous piece of brutality on the part of some vulgar official. Perhaps it was done to gratify the ignorant persons who came to witness the disgusting sentence of the repealed law carried into effect.
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