CRIME. 



525 



or district, by which a person is laid under an obliga- 

 tion not to pass over certain limits ; 5. removal from 

 office without infamy ; 6. temporary suspension from 

 office ; 7. reprimand from the court ; 8. recantation 

 before the court, or publicly ; 9. apologies ordered 

 by the court. 



Punishment can be inflicted only upon the perpe- 

 trator of a crime, and his accomplices. Fines, which 

 have not been imposed during the life-time of the 

 criminal, cannot be exacted after his death, unless, 

 in order to escape punishment, he commits suicide, 

 or endeavours to delay the judgment in other unlaw- 

 ful ways. If the laws of the place where the 

 crime has been committed, differ from those where 

 the criminal is tried, the milder punishment is 

 usually preferred to the more severe. The severity 

 of the laws of a country ought not to add to the 

 severity of the punishment of a crime committed 

 abroad. In the case of crimes of a very deep dye, the 

 punishment is determined by the general law. 



Punishments are also divided into ordinary or legal, 

 and discretionary punishments. The farmer are ex- 

 pressly provided by the law for any case that may 

 occur ; the latter are pronounced by the judge, in 

 cases in which the legal punishment cannot take ef- 

 fect, or in which the punishment is left to his discre- 

 tion. Alterations in the legal punishments take place, 

 1. when the object of the punishment would not be 

 obtained by its application ; 2. when the execution 

 is impossible, or, at least, very difficult ; 3. when the 

 execution would be injurious, not so much to the 

 criminal as to some innocent individual ; 4. when the 

 rank or the personal relations of the criminal require 

 an exception. Before making such an alteration, 

 however, the inferior court must first obtain the opi- 

 nion of the higher court. 



Punishments do not take effect in case, 1. of un- 

 limited remission or pardon ; 2. of a mitigation of the 

 sentence ; 3. of entire abolition, or the stopping of 

 all proceedings, by the sovereign power ; 4. of the 

 expiration of the period within which process can be 

 instituted, which is generally twenty years ; 5. of the 

 restoration of the offender to his former rank ; 6. 

 where the party is provisionally discharged, but re- 

 mains liable to be put again on trial, if new evidence 

 should be produced ; 7. of the death of the criminal, 

 unless he was convicted of high treason, or unless the 

 case was one in which the punishment was to have 

 been executed in effigy ; 8. in the case of small of- 

 fences, the punishment may be remitted upon an ac- 

 commodation taking place between the parties, or 

 upon a request for pardon coming from the offended 

 party ; 9. corporal punishments are remitted, in ge- 

 neral, when the criminal, before the execution of the 

 sentence, becomes insane or sick, to such a degree 

 that the infliction of the punishment might prove fetal 

 to him. In such a case, fines are usually substituted 

 for corporal punishments. The obligation to repair 

 the injury done to the offended party, does not become 

 extinct with the punishment. For more information 

 on this subject, see the subdivision, Criminal Law, at 

 the end of this article. 



Crime, Statistics of. This forms a very interest- 

 ing subject, wliich has not been as yet sufficiently in- 

 vestigated to enable us to give as accurate an account 

 as we could wish of the comparative amount of crime 

 in different countries, and of the numerical propor- 

 tion of the different kinds of crime. In deducing in- 

 ferences from such views, we should keep in mind 

 the general condition of different countries, and not 

 argue, for instance, against the moral state of a rich 

 and populous country, because many crimes against 

 property are committed therein, nor against that of 

 a poor and thinly peopled region, because it affords 

 comparatively numerous instances of personal vio- 



lence. For the study of the statistics of crime ia 

 France, we would recommend the Compte generate de 

 V Administration de la Justice criminelle en France, 

 which has been published annually, since 1825, by 

 the keeper of the seals. It gives an excellent view 

 of all the criminal processes in France. For England, 

 we have the returns to parliament, of which an ab- 

 stract has appeared in the Companion to the British 

 Almanac, published under the direction of the society 

 for the diffusion of useful knowledge (London). For 

 America, we do not know of any more complete 

 statement than that given in the annual reports of 

 the Prison Discipline Society (Boston), though it has 

 not yet been in the power of this praiseworthy insti- 

 tution to give a complete view of the nature of crimes 

 in all the states. Respecting Germany and many 

 other parts of the European continent, much informa- 

 tion is to be found in the Jahrbuecher der Straf- und 

 Besserungs-Anstalten (Annals of Establishments for 

 Punishment and Correction), by Nicholas Henry Ju- 

 lius (Berlin), published in monthly numbers a very 

 excellent work, embracing a wide extent of informa- 

 tion. The same writer has collected, in a highly 

 judicious manner, a great number of statements re- 

 specting crimes, prisons, houses of correction, common 

 schools, &c., both in Europe and America, in his 

 Vorlesungen ueber Ge/aengniss-Kunde,&c., (Lectures 

 on the Subject of Prisons,) by doctor N. H. Julius, 

 Berlin, 1828. 



The last report of the keeper of the seals in France, 

 for 1828, contains the following information. The 

 courts of assize decided within the year 6396 cases. 

 The number of individuals accused was 7396, being 

 an increase of 467 above those of 1827. The propor- 

 tion of the persons accused to the whole population, 

 was, in 1827, as 1 to 4593, and in 1828, as 1 to 4307. 

 Among the 7396 persons brought to the bar of the 

 courts of assize, 5970 were men, and 1426 women, 

 being in the proportion of 100 to 24. Among these, 

 4166 could neither read nor write ; 1858 could write 

 and read but imperfectly ; 780 were well instructed 

 in the first elements of knowledge ; and 118 had re- 

 ceived an education in colleges, or otherwise superior 

 to that supplied by primary schools. Of the 7396 

 prisoners, 2845 were acquitted, and 4551 convicted. 

 Of the latter, 114 were condemned to death, 268 

 to hard labour for life, 1142 to hard labour for 

 different terms, 1228 to solitary imprisonment, and 

 the rest to different kinds of correctional penalties. 

 The proportion of acquittals to convictions is as 39 to 

 61. Of the persons convicted and condemned, 3833 

 appealed to the court of cassation against their sen- 

 tences. Among the 114 condemned to capital pun- 

 ishment, 17 were persons who had already been sen- 

 tenced to penalties less severe. The chambers of the 

 first instance discharged, before trial, 16,409 persons 

 who had been arrested, or against whom informations 

 had been lodged. 1 he police cases or charges, de- 

 cided within the year, amounted to 95,589, including 

 132,169 persons. This is an excess of 9162 over 

 those of the preceding year. Among the facts, of 

 which justice was called upon to verify and state the 

 causes, were 4855 accidental deaths, 1754 suicides, 

 and 86 duels, of which 29 were fatal. 



Reports to the British parliament contain the fol- 

 lowing 



Return of the Number of Persons charged with Criminal 

 Offences committed for Trial, whether convicted or acquit, 

 ted, and the Number executed in England and Wales, 

 irith a similar Return for Ireland, in the yeart 1827 anil 

 1823. 



ENGLAND AND WALKS. 

 Committed for Trial. 1827. 1828. 



Males 15,151 . . . 13832 



Females, .... 2,770 . . 2,732 



17,921 



1B.5(I4 



