220 JEROME CARDAN. 



Having stated briefly the occasion of his son's crime, 

 and pointed out the special provocation that consisted in 

 the shamelessness of a wife, who not only was unfaithful, 

 but who boasted to her husband of her faithlessness; and, 

 having cited examples of men who were pardoned for 

 destroying their detected wives, he proceeded to urge that 

 those learned men were wrong who state that to kill by 

 poison is a worse crime than to kill by steel, because the 

 deed is more traitorous, and the chance of escape that it 

 gives is less. More men, he said, had been slain by the 

 sword than by poison. Crime so perpetrated caused less 

 scandal; and, therefore, the public example was less dan- 

 gerous. He quoted Plato's Phsedo, in which poison is 

 said to have required two or three separate administra- 

 tions, even when no antidote was used. He cited autho- 

 rities to prove the superior dignity and respectability of 

 poison as an instrument of death. It was said of poison- 

 ing, that it should be repressed by additional severity, 

 because it was a crime easy to perpetrate, hard to detect. 

 Was that a just ground for severer punishment? Mar- 

 tianus taught, that small thefts by domestics were not to 

 be brought at all to public trial ; yet of all offences they 

 were the easiest ; why were not they punished the most 

 severely? Then, again, what was the offence punished? 

 A contempt of law. If no law was offended, why was 

 the man imprisoned ? But is not open contempt of law 



