BLINDING  , a

form of punishment anciently common in many lands, being inflicted on thieves, adulterers, perjurers and other criminals . The inhabitants of Apollonia (Illyria) are said to have inflicted this penalty on their " watch " when found asleep at their posts . It was resorted to by the Roman emperors in their persecutions of the Christians . The method of destroying , the sight varied . Sometimes a mixture of lime and vinegar, or barely scalding vinegar alone, was poured into the eyes . Some-times a rope was twisted round the victim's head till the eyes started out of their sockets . In the middle ages the punishment seems to have been changed from total blindness to a permanent injury to the eyes, amounting, however, almost to blindness, produced by holding a red-hot iron dish or basin before the face . Under the forest laws of the Norman kings of England blinding was a common penalty . Shakespeare makes King John order' his nephew Arthur's eyes to be burnt out . BLINDMAN'S-BUFF (from an O . Fr. word, buffe, a blow, especially a blow on the cheek), a game in which one player is blindfolded and made to catch and identify one of the others, who in sport push him about and " buffet " him .