THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 437 



Even where the system, had so far matured that the right of retalia- 

 tion against a willful wrong-doer was recognized by his own family, 

 revenge (as among the Israelites) was frequently taken on account of 

 accidental or self -defensive acts of violence. It was a matter of course 

 that the legitimacy of such revenge should be denied, and its exercise 

 resented by the family upon which it was wreaked. 



Again, the injured family in most instances claimed a right of 

 revenge not only against the offending individual, but, in his absence, 

 against any member of his family — a claim which was naturally and 

 uniformly denied and resisted. In some societies the avenger seems 

 to have thought it incumbent on him not only to take life for life, but 

 to take two or more for one. Among the Congo people, according to 

 Tuckey, if one be killed by an inferior, his family proceed to put all 

 the male relatives of the guilty party to death. The prostitution of 

 the practice is complete where, as among the Bushmen described by 

 Reade, in his "Savage Africa," the stain of an injury suffered may 

 be washed out by spilling the blood of any innocent third person, in 

 case the guilty party is unknown or inaccessible. Superstition has 

 occasionally operated as an additional irritant to an insane revenge. 

 Schoolcraft relates that among some of the Dakota tribes of Indians 

 each clan supposed the others to have supernatural powers whereby 

 they could cause death. They hence frequently retaliated for deaths 

 which they imagined to have been thus occasioned, though they were 

 really due to natural causes. 



From such diversities of view concerning the right of retaliation, 

 and the justice of its application in particular instances, there inevi- 

 tably ensued high carnivals of bloodshed and embroilment. While 

 differing widely in degree among different races, the social disorder 

 thus occasioned everywhere stood out in conspicuous contrast with 

 that dearth of ordinary criminal acts which is characteristic of nearly 

 all uncivilized tribes. Apart from the violence proceeding from blood- 

 feuds, the unfrequency among such tribes of most of the acts we con- 

 sider criminal is very noteworthy. The great mass of offenses, whether 

 against person or property, which disgrace and disfigure civilization, 

 are the product of evil passions engendered by the exasperating in- 

 equalities of condition which are unknown to the experience of un- 

 civilized races. Of the instances of general and extreme addiction to 

 crime which are occasionally found in the loAver tribes of mankind, a 

 few, perhaps, must be classed as exceptions to this rule, but most of 

 them are to be explained by the fact that the races so characterized 

 are not really primitive, but are suffering, probably in an aggravated 

 form, from the vices of a civilization which they formerly enjoyed, or 

 with which they have at some time come in contact. 



The inducements to crime in a primitive community are too weak 

 and public opinion is too strong to admit of the rapid growth of crimi- 

 nal practices. Offenses against property necessarily partake of the 



