524 



CRIME. 



with Savoy, Crillon returned to Avignon, where he 

 died in 1610, in his seventy-fifth year. History re- 

 presents this hero as a brilliant warrior, a wise coun- 

 sellor, true to his word, and faithful to every duty. 

 He did not desert Henry III. when his crown seem- 

 ed to be lost. He was faithful to Henry IV. when 

 he had nothing but in prospect. Nevertheless, his 

 independence sometimes became rudeness. He was 

 exceedingly sensitive on the point of honour, and 

 any praise which looked like an insult would make 

 him draw his sword. He was remarkable for his 

 profanity, and, in the last days of his life, swore with 

 his favourite oath never to swear again. Next to 

 Bayard, Crillon is the greatest character of his class, 

 to be found in French history. 



CRIME. Crime is generally used to designate 

 an act of guilt, which offends the laws both of 

 God and man. It implies freedom of will, and 

 a power of distinguishing between right and wrong. 

 Hence young children, madmen, and idiots cannot 

 commit crimes, neither can persons in a state of great 

 intoxication.* But the circumstances under which 

 full imputability or responsibility shall commence, 

 cannot be decided by general rules, but each case 

 must be judged by itself. To constitute a crime, 

 there must be an intention manifested by an out- 

 ward act. If the intention be wanting, the act is 

 merely accidental. If the outward act is wanting, 

 there is nothing for human tribunals to punish. Mere 

 intention does not come under their cognizance. 

 There are, moreover, many acts of guilt committed, 

 in every community, which are not of a nature to 

 be made the subject of legislation, and cannot be 

 brought before the courts. On the other hand, 

 there are, in every state, certain actions, in them- 

 selves naturally indifferent, but which are forbidden 

 and punished as injurious to the community. These 

 form the greater part of the class of mere offences 

 against the police regulations. Many actions, in 

 themselves indifferent, may, however, by reason of 

 the heavy penalties attached to them, be classed 

 among crimes in the technical and juridical sense. 

 The degree of punishment imposed on any crime 

 should be proportioned to the degree of injury volun- 

 tarily inflicted. It is matter or importance to de- 

 cide whether an uninterrupted series of illicit acts 

 is to be considered as the continuation of a single 

 crime (delictum contiuatum), or as several crimes of 

 the same land (delictum reiteratum). In the former 

 case, there would be only one punishment ; in the 

 latter, several. But the award of several punish- 

 ments, if capital, cannot be executed by more than 

 one punishment of death ; and, if the punishment 

 consist in a deprivation of freedom, the confinement 

 can only be prolonged. According to the scientific 

 principles of law, it would be, perhaps, most correct 

 to consider the several crimes as constituting a 

 whole, deserving only one punishment, to be pro- 

 portioned to the amount of guilt (paena major ab- 

 sorbet minor em), although the majority of learned 

 jurists is, at present, of another opinion. Quasi de- 

 licta are injuries which must be repaired by their 

 authors, though the intention to perpetrate an illicit 

 act need not be evident. The Roman law has made 

 such provisions in various cases. (See Criminal 

 Law. 



Punishments themselves may be divided into cri- 



* Drunkenness is not admitted as a ground of acquittal, 

 or even of mitigation of punishment, either in Britain or 

 America. But a distinction ig taken between a crime com- 

 mitted when the party is in a state of actual intoxication, 

 and a crime committed when he is insane, and his insanity 

 is remotely caused by an indulgence in habits of drunken- 

 ness. In the former case, he is deemed culpable, in the 

 Utter, not. 



mil ui 1 and civil, or police punislunents. The criminal 

 or severe punishments are such as have great crimes 

 for their object. They may be divided into, 1. capi- 

 tal punislunents (see Capital Punishment): 2. de- 

 privation of liberty simply (as in the case of imprison- 

 ment, and exile from the country), or accompanied 

 with hard labour (for instance, labour in a work- 

 house, a tread-mill, &c.), or sharpened by the inflic- 

 tion of pain (for instance, the punishment of labour- 

 ing in the work-house, with stripes at the entrance 

 and exit, or hard labour, with an iron chain round 

 the neck) : 3. punishments inflicting mere bodily pains, 

 or corporal punishments, such as mutilation (which, 

 however, is discarded in well ordered states) and 

 whipping (the latter is frequently applied in inferior 

 crimes, or on young persons not yet entirely corrupt 

 ed) : 4. punishments affecting the honour. All 

 punishments of crime, indeed, have this character ; 

 but, in some cases, the punishment consists mainly in 

 the degradation. Of this latter sort are, 1. such 

 punishments as have for their object to work com- 

 plete degradation ; for instance, the breaking of the 

 armorial bearings of a noble family by the hangman, 

 branding, and the public flogging usually connected 

 with it, deprivation of decent burial, civil death, 

 hanging in effigy: 2. such as are intended merely 

 to withdraw some particular civil honour ; as loss of 

 nobility, exclusion from guilds and corporations, re- 

 moval from office : 3. such as have for their object 

 merely humiliation and chastisement. The latter 

 sort may, according to the rank of the criminal and 

 the magnitude of the crime, be connected with cor- 

 poral punishment ; for instance, the pillory, &c. : 

 or they may be of a different kind ; as suspension 

 from office, church penances, judicial reprimands, 

 begging of pardon, recantation of injuries, &c. This 

 latter class of punishments is intended chiefly for the 

 correction of the person chastised. The highest de- 

 gree of degrading punishments is always to be con- 

 sidered as equal to loss of life. 4. Civil death is a 

 fiction of law (fictio juris), by means of which an in- 

 dividual can be considered as really dead, with re- 

 gard to all or some of the common legal privileges. 

 This is not always to be considered as a degrading 

 punishment, since any one can give occasion to a sen- 

 tence of civil death by absence or neglect. This, 

 however, in such instances, has no effect beyond the 

 case which gave occasion to the sentence. 5. Fines 

 in money are not always attended with a loss or 

 diminution of honour. They are imposed principally 

 on usurers, counterfeiters, libellers, adulterers, fore- 

 stallers, persons guilty of frauds against the revenue, 

 and other frauds of adulterating wine, of carrying on 

 trades which they are not entitled to exercise, and on 

 many offenders against the police regulations and the 

 feudal institutions. Except in the case of high trea- 

 son, fines or confiscations do not usually embrace 

 the whole fortune of the offender, and are mostly 

 limited to the instruments with which the crimes 

 were perpetrated. A colourable transfer of property 

 which has become liable to confiscation will not pro- 

 tect it. 



Civil and police punishments are such as are in- 

 flicted for petty offences, and can be imposed by the 

 civil judge. They are chiefly 1. fines; yet a cor- 

 poral punishment, when changed by the sovereign 

 into a fine, retains the character of a criminal punish- 

 ment, without Ijeing generally connected with ig- 

 nominy ; 2 . imprisonment ; for instance, civil confine- 

 ment, arrest, which is not connected with criminal 

 imprisonment ; 3. such fines as are neither equivalent 

 to a corporal punishment, nor can be changed into 

 one ; 4. condemnation to mechanical and agricultural 

 labours, or chastisement with stripes, confinement 

 , \\ithin jail limits, or confinement to a country, city, 



