_Boston Telegraph._
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LUDICROUS PUNISHMENT. In the first volume of the "Library of
American Biography, conducted by Jared Sparks," the following
incident in the life of Ethan Allen shows the character of the
government in Vermont in 1774, when the inhabitants were
resisting the claims of New-York to jurisdiction over their
territory. A Committee of Safety was the highest judicatory, and
Allen was Col. Commandant of the territory. If any person
presumed to act under the authority of the State of N. York, he
was immediately arraigned and judgement pronounced against him,
in the presence of many persons, by which he was sentenced to be
tied to a tree and chastised "with the twigs of the wilderness"
on his naked back, to the number of two hundred stripes, and
immediately expelled from the district, and threatened with death
if he should return, unless specially permitted by the
convention.
"In the midst of these signs, the mode of punishment was
sometimes rather ludicrous than severe.
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