PLEADING FOR A SON'S LIFE. 22 1 



by the sword worse than the tacit respect for the law im- 

 plied by the poisoner when he endeavours to deceive it? 

 There is no petulance in the act of poisoning. He who 

 kills by poison, kills from some necessity. He who kills 

 by the sword, kills through anger, ambition, or licentious- 

 ness, and means to kill. He who uses poison, swaying 

 between anger and just grief, means and means not to 

 kill, and, in the end, leaves the result very much to 

 chance. Of fifty that are poisoned, only one may die. 

 He who drinks poison, need not drink; he who is stabbed, 

 has the knife thrust upon him, whether he will or not. 

 But it is urged that poison is more certain of its victim 

 than the sword. Not so, argued the casuist. It is neces- 

 sary of poison that the dose be fatal, that it be all taken, 

 that remedies be absent or be neglected, and that the 

 taker trust a person whom he has capitally injured. Does 

 he die, then, through a trust betrayed? Say rather, that 

 he is punished for his rash and impious confidence. But 

 poisoners in the eye of the law, were not they who gave, 

 but who killed by poison. The old Cornelian law, too, 

 instituted among such criminals a rule of dignity. The 

 common people were given to wild beasts ; persons of 

 higher grade were exiled. " Therefore," the father said, 

 " my son, graduate in medicine and member of the 

 college, and the son of a graduate and member, at the 

 same time the grandson of a jurisconsult and member of 



