Out-of-date Idiom?

[nice90sguy]

I get no hits for "gave him the third degree" before the 1890s

Wow, the Wayback machine is MUCH cooler than I thought

 

[Bamagan]

There are lots of things which have a third degree (burns being another), but I think @Bamagan was talking about it in the sense of a very strict interrogation, and AFAICT that meaning does seem to have originated with Thomas Byrnes. (At least, I get no hits for "gave him the third degree" before the 1890s, and a lot of the early hits are associated with Byrnes.)

That's correct regarding my intent. I probably should have quoted the OP to make it more clear I was trying to respond to the use of the phrase as an idiomatic expression for a harsh interrogation. That being said, I was only vaguely aware that it had something to do with the masons prior to it entering the vernacular, so to speak, so I learned something too.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Wow, the Wayback machine is MUCH cooler than I thought

Google Ngrams. One of the useful things Google has yet to kill.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Bed Him Down is an Old West term meaning to kill a man.