Reported On This Day 280 Years Ago (July 28 1739): Man in Poland has been beheaded for killing his mother

POLAND. Lublin, June 10. O.S

A gentleman named Kaliszewsky, convicted of taking away his mother’s life, was executed here this morning, pursuant to the sentence pronounced against him, he was to be torn with pincers, a lump of his flesh cut out, and his head and his right hand cut off; after which he was to be drawn in quarters, and the members nailed upon posts set up in the middle of four high roads, in order to imprint in peoples minds a just horror of so abominable and unnatural a crime: but the tribunal being willing to favour the criminal, they dispensed with him suffering the torture of being torn with pincers and having a lump of flesh cut from his body.

This gentleman’s younger brother was concerned in the crime, but has taken sanctuary in the convent of the Carmelites: he is condemn’d to be laid on a wheel, where four lumps of his flesh, as well as his right hand, are to be cut off, after which he is to be broke alive, and left on the wheel till he expires.

A guard has been posted at every avenue of the convent, lest the friars thro’ a mistaken compassion, should facilitate his escape.

[There are many reports of executions in the 1739 newspapers. In Britain and Ireland by then executions were overwhelmingly by hanging, and there are occasional reports on mass hangings of thieves. The particularly grisly method of executing someone by breaking them on a wheel, as planned for the brother of the man who killed his mother, above, is actually carried out in the incident reported below in Corsica, which is from the July 6 News Letter, which is July 17 in the modern calendar]

ITALY. Leghorn, June 12.

Our last letters from Bastia bring advice that the marquis de Maillebois having judg’d proper to punish in an exemplary manner the Corsican who murdered a captain of the regiment of Auvergne, he was broke alive upon the wheel, where they let him expire, after which they cut off his head and one of his hands, and fix’d them upon a long pole: that this execution, the first of the kind that has been seen in Corsica, had greatly intimidated the inhabitants; and that the marquis order’d that, besides the two gibbets let up in the town, the scaffold and the wheel should be left on the key, in order to preserve this execution fresh in the people’s minds.

However, those letters add, that the French general punishes very severely the faults of his soldiers, several of them having lately been hang’d upon the complaints made against them by the inhabitants.

By a private letter from Jamaica, we hear, that the rebellious negroes have been so troublesome all over the island, that a party of 300 men was ordered to pursue them, whereupon the former having taken to their ambushes, several of the soldiers were killed, and many of the negroes wounded, capt. Guthery, who had the command, told them, he would pursue and destroy them every where, and having burnt the town of 300 houses, and their captain’s house, which was 100 feet long, they came to a capitulation, exchanged hostages, and drew up articles of peace for the governor’s approbation, who distributed a 100 pistoles amongst the soldiers, promising to see them well rewarded by the country.

LONDON, July 7.

The right hon. the lords commissioners for the treasury have adjourn’d for three Weeks, Sir Robert Walpole having set out this day for his seat at Houghton-Hall in Norfolk.

[Boris Johnson is the 55th prime minister. Robert Walpole was the first]

Yesterday a general council was held at Kensington.

Petersburg, June 23.

Letters from the Ukrain[sic] bring advice, that the 31st of last month the veldt marshal count Munich was arrived within ten wrests of the frontiers of Poland, and intends to march through part of that kingdom towards Sorokka, in order to pass the Dniester near that town.

They write from Warsaw of the 17th instant, that the Russian army has entered the Polish territories, and that our resident there has sent circular letters to all the senators to give them notice of it.

The Persian ambassadors give out, that Schach Nadir pursues his victories with such rapidity in India, that he is in a fair way of dethroning the Great Mogul.

[The Schach Nadir, or Shah of Persia, had by this time sacked Dehli, but it took many months for this news to travel thousands of miles and reach western Europe. A previous News Letter had reported on the Schach Nadir’s blistering progress over thousands of miles towards India, in the territory of the ‘Great Mogul’]