MILE. 



MILITARY PUNISHMENTS. 



Tfce scale of RenneU's map ii three inches to degree of latitude ; 

 and the only remaining question it, how much must thin 10-03 inches, 

 which ia a total of distances measured in the shortest linen from place 

 to place, be increased to allow for the deriationi of the road* ? If we 

 Msume that the deration waa equal to that in England at the Revolu- 

 tion. we must * increase l(Hi3 in the pro|>ortion of 100 to 127, which 

 gires 2 85!<1. It must be remembered that the more allowance is 

 made for deviation. the longer is the leuca; and we think it ia the 

 least supposition which can be made, to suppose the deviation on 

 routes in Palestine no greater than in England. Dr. Bernard states 

 that it waa the practice of the Oriental geographer Abu Kihan (Al 

 Binini or Birunius) to deduct one-fifth from distances measured on 

 the roads, to obtain the true distances in a straight line. This amounts 

 to increasing the umnlx-r of miles measured on the map in the propor- 

 tion of 100 to 125, and is practically accordant with the preceding rule 

 in a question of which the data are as rough aa in the present one. 

 The testimony is valuable as referring to roads in the Eat, and at the 

 period to which Bacon's account refers. The leuca is then, on these 

 suppositions, -1385 of an inch on Kennell's map, or -0445 of a degree. 

 The length of the degree in these latitudes being assumed at 363,500 

 feet, we deduce 3*064 statute miles as the length of a leuca, or 1'582 

 statute miles as the length of the old mile. If we were to reject the 

 correction for deviation, the result would be 1-206 statute miles, which 

 is unquestionably too small. 



In 1 422 Sir Gilbert de Lannoy was sent by Henry V. of England, on 

 a tour of military observation in Egypt and Syria. His account is 

 published (from a manuscript in the Bodleian) in the 21st volume of 

 the ' Archseologia." He never mentions the league more than once or 

 twice, and gives all his distances in miles. From his account of Egypt 

 we soon found that no hypothesis would moke his distances agree with 

 modern travellers. He places the city of Cairo, for instance, three 

 miles from its port Boolak, which distance is now called only one mile. 

 f KAHIK.V, in GEOO. Div.] But on examining his distances in Palestine 

 there appears almost a certainty that he used a smaller mile, of which 

 two and a half (and not two) make the league of Roger Bacon. The 

 following are all the comparisons which his work affords us the means 

 of making : 



Bacon. 

 Leagues. 

 From Joppa to Aco ... 24 



Aco to Tyre 

 ,, Tjrrc to sidon . 

 Sidon to Ituruth 

 Jerusalem to Joppa 



9 

 9 



8} 

 12 



I-annoy. League 

 Miles, in Miles. 

 60 

 SS 

 20 

 25 

 SO 



2-5 



2-78 



2-5 



2-9-1 



2-S 



But even Lannoy 's mile iiiu.it be longer than our statute mile ; and 

 it ia difficult to explain the difference. One thing ia certain, that 

 Lannoy 's mile in 1422 cannot be the same thing with that of William 

 of Worcester in 1473, or that of Bacon in 1250, being shorter than 

 either. 



So far our conclusions proceed upon assumptions of the highest 

 probability ; and the result is, that from the English measurements we 

 may infer that 100 ancient miles certainly exceed 141 statute miles, 

 while from those in Palestine they are most likely not much less than 

 153 such miles. It is highly probable that the result is nearer to 153 

 than to 141. If we were to take a mean of both results, giving them 

 equal weights, the mile thus obtained would be probably too small, 

 and this result is 1-47 ; so that (as mentioned in LKAUUK) the ratio of 

 145 to 100 is the very least which is admissible, and perhaps too small 

 even for a minimum. It seems to us that a more probable result 

 would be obtained by taking 153 as a result of the measure in Palestine 

 (for it is hard to believe that the correction for deviation could have 

 been too much), and giving this number twice as much weight as 141 

 in forming a mean of the two. This given 140 in place of 147; or, 

 roughly speaking, we think it by no means improbable that 100 ancient 

 miles were as much on 150 statute miles, and tolerably certain that 

 they exceeded 145 such miles. At the some time there is evidence 

 enough that very different miles were in use among writers, and also 

 that the most ignorant confusion between ancient and modern mea- 

 sures frequently existed. Sir John Haundevile, for instance, says, 

 " Aftrc the auctoures of astronomye, 700 furlonge* of erthe onsweren 

 to a degree of the firmament : and tho ben 87 miles and 4 furlongos. 

 >"uw be that here multiplyed by 360 sithes ; and than the! ben 

 31,600 myls, every of 8 furlonges, aftre inyles of cure contrce." 

 The old astronomical authors use the stadium, which i here 

 nude to be the English furlong, a measure with which it bod no 

 



There is certainly this difficulty in the way, that [LEAGUE] the 

 ancient minimum distance between two market-towns must have been 

 19 modern statute miles, which seems a great distance. But it must 

 be remembered that this appearance is a consequence of the notion* 

 derived from the modern interpretations of the court*, which make 

 the leuca to be a statute mile; so that 7 miles has long beon the legal 

 distance. This interpretation is so preposterous that it must be thrown 

 aside ; for even if the mile of Braoton and Fleta were the mile of the 

 booh, and not the mil* of the people, the leuca would bo 10,000 feet, 



W Uks taU from MOM rough trUU, out of Oilbv' t book, but we relv 

 or* on Iks eastern iwfnBbcr presenllv mention**. 



or two statute miles all but the tenth of a mile. And the reason given 

 by Braoton certainly requires some greater distance than seven miles. 

 For he implies [LEAOCE] that the third of a day's work should be half 

 the distance of two markets ; and gives a time for buying and selling 

 nt longer iu duration than that allowed for going to the market. 

 Reading this paragraph by the modern interpretation of the courts, the 

 time of business would be that in which a laden horse or market-cart 

 would go three miles and a half ; and if, taking into account the bad- 

 ness of roads in the 15th century, we allow even as much as two hours 

 for this, then the day's work would be only six hours. According to 

 our reading, the time of going nine miles and a half would be the time 

 of business ; or allowing three miles an hour, the day's work wouM K- 

 something more than nine hours. It may however be possible, and 

 not improbable, that the mile of 5,000 feet, or that of the books, was 

 that of the courts of judicature, which would give about 124 statute 

 miles as the distance in question. 



We conjecture that the length of the ancient mile arose from that 

 confusion between the mile and the leuca which is referred to by 

 Ingulphus. [LEAGUE.] The louca of fifteen hundred paces would, 

 when the foot attained iU permanent length, be T42 modern statute 

 miles, to which the term mile being applied, we have the probable 

 beginning of the old mile, that is, we adopt D'Anville's conclusion ou 

 different grounds. If in the meanwhile the leuca of 2000 paces come 

 into use (aa, according to Ingulphus, it did), which would be called in 

 the books two miles (as in fact it was two miles of the u-ritert), it is by 

 no means surprising that a new leuca of two long miles should be 

 formed from the mile of the people. This would be but a po< > 

 jecture for the establishment of a measure ; but it has great force in 

 reference to a mile, the existence of which is separately proved. And 

 though Ingulphus states that the word leuca was introduced as mean- 

 ing a mile, yet it is more likely that the new measure should have 

 been introduced under the old name, than the new name for the old 

 measure : it is moreover tolerably certain that the conquerors would 

 attempt to introduce both their measure and its name, while the people 

 would be able to resist the latter, but not the former. 



The origin of the statute mile may perhaps be explained as follows : 

 The furlong, or quarantena, was not a part of the Roman itinerary 

 system of measures. It grew out of the perch, or perticata, a measure 

 originally of small lengths, as in buying or selling of land, 40 of which 

 were mode into one by the simple name of forty-long, or furlong. The 

 great variations of the perch, in different ports of the country, induced 

 the legislature, at a very early period, to fix it at five yards and a half. 

 It did not harmonise with the book-system of measures, and we see 

 [LEAGUE] that when it was introduced there, the mile was awkwardly 

 described as seven furlongs and a half, three perches, and two : 

 The legislators of Elizabeth, who were well acquainted with the 

 stadium, seeing the mile of the books (and perhaps of the courts) 

 making upwards of seven furlongs and a half, might very naturally 

 restore the nominal accordance of the old and modern systems, nnd at 

 the same time avoid fractional quantities, by lengthening the mile into 

 eight furlongs. 



MILITARY POSITIONS. [TACTICS.] 



MILITARY rrMSII.M K.VI'S We have little knowledge of the 

 manner in which offences against military discipline were |nmishi -,1 !>y 

 the Greeks; but it appears that, for sedition or mutiny, the com- 

 mander of an army hud the power of causing the ringleaders to bo 

 seized and instantly put to death. Ac-um nmn. in 

 threatens such as may desert, that they shall die ; and Alexander the 

 Ureat, when a mutiny took place partly in consequence of the ji 

 excited by the favour which he showed to the Persians, caused ti 

 of his Macedonians to be executed without a trial (Arrian, 

 vii. 8.) The military law of Athens prescribed the punishment of 

 death for the crime of desertion while on service. Occasionally, how- 

 over, this serious offence was only punished with imprisonment or fine ; 

 for, whatever might be the power of an Athenian commander over his 

 soldiers in the field, it is probable that he would be very careful how- 

 he exercised it; since, at the termination of a campaign, a man h.. 

 might consider himself unjustly treated could compel his officer to 

 answer for his conduct before a tribunal of his countrymen. Among 

 the Lacedemonians, cowards and deserters were either put to death or 

 publicly disgraced ; offenders who did not suffer the extreme ] 

 were made, when at home, to wear a party-coloured dress, au<l wer<> 

 obliged to submit in silence to any insult which the meanest citizen 

 might choose to offer. Disgrace also fell upon the soldier \vli<>, in 

 action, hod the misfortune to lose his shield. 



The Romans punished crimes committed by the soldiery with great 

 Kor the gravest offences soldiers were beheaded or crucified ; 

 and under the Pagan emperors some, pr i as profem- 



Christian religion, were burnt i osed to wild beasts. On the 



occurrence of a mutiny, every tenth, twentieth, or hundredth man 

 was sometimes chosen by I r.illy only tho ringleaders 



were selected for punishment. Deserters and seditious persons 

 were frequently, after being scourged, sold for slaves ; and occa- 

 sionally the offender waa made to lose his right bond, or was bled 

 nearly to death. 



If a soldier absented himself from the spot assigned to him for tho 

 night-watch, or if he was found asleep at his post, he was the next day 

 brought before the tribune, who on the fact being proved, sentenced 



