Religious fanaticism.

One reads in the newspaper Siècle of March 23, 1862:

The couple C…, residing on the Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth [3rd district of Paris], had two children: a little boy of fifteen months and a girl of five years, who were never seen, for no one entered their house. The girl was glimpsed only once, tied by the armpits and hung from a door; groans were frequently heard coming from the house. The rumor spread that she was the object of odious treatment. The commissioner of police went to the place and found himself obliged to use force to enter.

A hideous spectacle unfolded before the eyes of the persons who entered. The poor girl was without a chemise and without stockings, with only a little Indian dress of a repugnant filthiness. The skin of her feet had ended by adhering to the leather of her shoes. She was seated on a small chamber pot, leaning against a chest and held by cords that passed through the handle of the room. According to the inquiry, she had been in this position for several months, which had produced a prolapse of the rectum; that the parents rose at night to torment the victim; they woke her with blows: the woman with tongs and the handle of the feather duster; the husband with a cord. Reprimanded by the commissioner, the husband replied: “Sir, I am very religious; my daughter prayed badly; that is why I wished to correct her.” What would the author of the article cited earlier, concerning the suicides of Tours, say if this barbarity of people who call themselves very religious were imputed to religion? The act of that mother who killed her five children to send them sooner to Heaven? That of the young servant girl who, taking literally the maxim of Christ: “If your right hand scandalizes you, cut it off,” cut off her hand with blows of an axe? He would reply that it is not enough to call oneself religious, but that one must be so in the good sense; that one must not draw a general conclusion from an isolated fact. We are of the same opinion, and we send him the reply regarding his imputations against Spiritism, concerning persons who take only its name. [1] This title of the Miscellany section does not exist in the original; it was placed here out of simple necessity required by the indexing.—(Compiler's Note.)