the public executioner shall lead him in the direction of the sepulchre of the dead man, to a place whence he can see the tomb, and after inflicting upon him as many stripes as the complainant shall order, put the murderer, if he survives the scourging, to death. Though the slave has committed. the act in a fit of passion, the relatives of the deceased shall nevertheless be under an obligation to kill him, and this may be done in any manner they please; nay, even in self-defence a slave is not allowed to kill a freeman, any more than a son is allowed to kill his father.3 At Rome, also, a slave was more heavily punished for the commission of homicide than a freeman. Says the ancient jurist, "Maiores nostri in omni supplicio severius servos quam liberos famosos quam integræ famæ homines punierunt." 2 ܪܙܙ In the estimate of life a distinction is made not only between freemen and slaves, but between different classes. of freemen. Among certain peoples a person who kills a chief is punished with death, though murder is not generally a capital offence. Where the system of compensation prevails, the blood-price very frequently varies according to the station or rank of the victim. Among the Rejangs of Sumatra the compensation for the murder of a superior chief is five hundred dollars, for that of an inferior chief two hundred and fifty dollars; for that of a common person, man or boy, eighty dollars; for that of a common person, woman or girl, one hundred and fifty dollars; for the legitimate child or wife of a superior chief, two hundred and fifty dollars. The body of every Ossetian has 1 Plato, Leges, ix. 872. 2 Ibid. ix. 868. 3 Ibid. ix. 869. 8 4 Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, p. 631 sq. 5 Digesta, xlviii. 19. 28. 16. 6 Woodthorpe, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxvi. 21 (Shans). Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, p. 103. 7 Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs, p. 144. Casalis, Basutos, p. 225. Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 301. Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, pp. 242 sq. (Marea), 314 (Beni Amer). Forbes, A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, p. 145 (Lampongers of Sumatra). Modigliani, Viaggio a Nías, p. 494. Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, i. 386 (Kutchin). Gibbs, loc cit. p. 190 (Indians of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon). Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, ii. 411 n. (Hungarians). 8 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, iii. 112. 2 a settled value in the eyes of the judges, which seems to be fixed by public opinion; thus the father of a family bears a higher value than an unmarried man, and a noble is rated at twice as much as an ordinary freeman.1 In Eastern Tibet the murderer of a man of the upper class is fined 120 bricks of tea, the murderer of a middle-class man only 80, and so, on down through the social scale, the life of a beggar being valued at a nominal amount only; but if the victim was a lama, the murderer has to pay a much higher price, possibly 300 bricks. According to the doctrine of modern Buddhism, "when the life of a man is taken, the demerit increases in proportion to the merit of the person slain. The Laws of the Brets and Scots estimated the life of the king of Scots at a thousand cows; that of an earl's son, or a thane, at a hundred cows; that of a villein, at sixteen cows.4 A similar system prevailed among the Celtic peoples generally, as also among the Teutons. A man's wergeld, or life-price, varied according to his rank, birth, or office; and so minutely was it graduated, that a great part of many Teutonic laws was taken up by provisions fixing its amount in different cases." In English laws of the Norman age the wer of a villanus is still only reckoned at £4, whilst that of the homo plene nobilis is £25. 5 The magnitude of the crime, however, may depend not only on the rank of the victim, but on the rank of the manslayer as well. Among the Philippine Islanders, "murder committed by a slave was punished with death -committed by a person of rank, was indemnified by 1 von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 409. Kovalewsky, Coutume contemporaine, p. 355 sqq. 2 Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, p. 221. 3 Hardy, Manual of Budhism, p. 478. 4 Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 180 sq. 5 Ancient Laws of Ireland, iii. 103, &c. Skene, Celtic Scotland, iii. 152. de Valroger, Les Celtes, p. 471. 6 Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthü mer, pp. 272-275, 289. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, i. 104, 105, 107, 108, 224, 247 sqq. Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 276 sqq. 7 Leges Henrici I. lxx. 1; lxxvi. 4. Cf. Laws of William the Conqueror, i. 8. 8 These two principles do not always go together. Among the Rejangs the amount of the blood-money is not proportioned to the rank and ability of the murderer, but regulated only by the quality of the person murdered (Marsden, op. cit. p. 246). 4 payments to the injured family." 1 In Fijian estimation, says Mr. Williams, offences "are light or grave according to the rank of the offender. Murder by a chief is less heinous than a petty larceny committed by a man of low rank." 2 Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, "in cases of murder and manslaughter, if the homicide be of rank superior to the person killed, he pays the compensation demanded by the family of the latter, or, in default of payment, forfeits his own life. If the homicide be of equal rank with the person killed, the family of the deceased have the right to demand his life, though compensation is usually accepted; but when he is lower in rank his life is nearly always forfeited." Very similar rules prevail among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast. Among the Marea, if a nobleman kills another nobleman, the family of the deceased generally take revenge on him; whereas, if a commoner kills a nobleman, he is not only executed himself, but his property is confiscated and his nearest relatives become subject to the murdered man's family. According to the religious law of Brahmanism, the enormity of all crimes depends on the caste of him who commits them, and on the caste of him against whom they are committed." If a Brahmana slays a Brahmana, the king shall brand him on the forehead with a heated iron and banish him from his realm, but if a man of a lower caste murders a Brâhmana, he shall be punished with death and the confiscation of all his property. If such a person slays a man of equal or lower caste, other suitable punishments shall be inflicted upon him. A fine of a thousand cows is the penalty for slaying a Kshatriya, that of a hundred for slaying a Vaisya, and that of ten cows only for slaying a Sûdra.9 In Rome, also, at a certain period of its history, the 8 5 offence was magnified in proportion to the insignificance of the offender. During the Republic there was no law sanctioning such a distinction, with reference to crimes committed by free citizens; but from the beginning of the Empire, the citizens were divided into privileged classes and commonalty-uterque ordo and plebs—and, whilst a commoner who was guilty of murder was punished with death, a murderer belonging to the privileged classes was generally punished with deportatio only. In the Middle Ages a similar privilege was granted by Italian and Spanish laws to manslayers of noble birth.2 In a society which is divided into different classes, persons belonging to a higher class are naturally apt to sympathise more with their equals than with their inferiors. An injury inflicted on one of the former tends to arouse in them a higher degree of sympathetic resentment than a similar injury inflicted on one of the latter. So, also, their resentment towards the criminal will, ceteris paribus, be more intense if he is a person of low rank than if he is one of themselves. Where the superior class, as was originally the case everywhere, are the leaders of such a society, their feelings will find expression in its customs and laws, and thus moral distinctions will arise which are readily recognised by the common people also, owing to the admiration with which they look up to those above them. But in a progressive society this state of things will not last. The different classes gradually draw nearer to each other. The once all-powerful class loses much of its exclusiveness, as well as of its importance and influence. Sympathy expands. In consequence, distinctions which were formerly sanctioned by custom and law come to be regarded as unjust prerogatives, worthy only of abolition. And it is at last admitted that each member of the society is born with an equal claim to the most sacred of all human rights, the right to live. 1 Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, pp. 650, 1032 sqq. 2 Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel VOL. I des peuples modernes, ii. 402. Idem, Histoire du droit criminel de l'Espagne, pp. 357, 359. Cf. ibid. p. 635 sq. F CHAPTER XIX HUMAN SACRIFICE Ir still remains for us to consider some particular cases in which destruction of human life is sanctioned by custom or law. 3 1 Men are killed with a view to gratifying the desires of superhuman beings. We meet with human sacrifice in the past history of every so-called Aryan race. It occurred, at least occasionally, in ancient India, and several of the modern Hindu sects practised it even in the last century.2 There are numerous indications that it was known among the early Greeks. At certain times it prevailed in the Hellenic cult of Zeus; indeed, in the second century after Christ men seem still to have been sacrificed to Zeus Lycæus in Arcadia. To the historic age likewise belongs the sacrifice of the three Persian prisoners of war whom Themistocles was compelled to slay before the battle of Salamis." In Rome, also, human sacrifices, though 5 4 Northern India, ii. 167 sqq. Chevers, 3 See Geusius, Victima Humana, 4 Cf. Farnell, op. cit. i. 93; Stengel, 5 Pausanias, viii. 38. 7. |