120 NOMOLOGY. 



or testament, is a voluntary instrument, disposing of the testator's 

 property, after his decease. 



3. The Laws of Crimes, are included in the first parts of Black- 

 stone's Books on Private, and Public Wrongs. Crimes may be 

 classed either as directly against the public welfare ; or against private 

 persons ; or against private property. In the first class may be men- 

 tioned treason, piracy ; insurrection, riots, or affrays ; resisting the 

 execution of the law ; obstructing or injuring public works, as high- 

 ways ; creating public nuisances, by contaminating the air, or water, 

 and the like; gambling, profanity, and other violations of public 

 morals ; and all similar offences. Perjury, or false swearing ; and 

 bribery, which is hiring or being hired to pervert justice ; including 

 embracery, or an attempt to corrupt or unjustly influence a jury; are 

 usually both public and private wrongs. Crimes against private per- 

 sons, are such as murder, or inflicting death unlawfully and inten- 

 tionally ; manslaughter, or doing the same criminally, though with- 

 out direct intention ; injury to personal safety, as assaulting, maim- 

 ing, stabbing, shooting, or poisoning; injury to personal liberty, as 

 seizing or kidnapping ; injury to personal character, as slander, or 

 libelling ; and injury to personal purity, as bigamy, adultery, and the 

 like. Crimes against private property, are arson, or setting fire in- 

 tentionally to dwellings or buildings contiguous to them ; and, of like 

 character, setting fire to, or destroying other property ; also burglary, 

 or house-breaking by night ; and, analogous to it, other house-break- 

 ing ; also robbery, or forcibly taking away property ; and larceny, 

 or stealing ; together with forgery, counterfeiting, fraudulent convey- 

 ances, swindling, and the like. 



Of the particular punishments, which, for these and other offences, 

 vary in the different states, we have riot sufficient room to speak par- 

 ticularly. The punishments generally in use, are capital punish- 

 ment, or the infliction of death, usually by hanging ; next imprison- 

 ment, either in penitentiaries, which are state prisons, or in jails, 

 which are county prisons; and lastly, fines or amercements, exact- 

 ing the payment of money to the state, the informer, or prosecutor; 

 or damages, awarded to the injured party. Corporal punishments, 

 such as whipping, branding, and cropping, are now seldom inflicted ; 

 solitary confinement being generally regarded as the punishment best 

 calculated to reform the offender. On the theory of punishments 

 we have already briefly spoken, under the head of Political Philo- 

 sophy, (p. 103.) 



4. The Laws of Procedure, include the latter parts of Black- 

 stone's Books on Private and Public Wrongs ; relating to the mode 

 of redressing injuries, or of punishing crimes. Proceedings in 

 Courts of Justice, are styled either civil or criminal, according as 

 they relate to the former or the latter objects. The violation of any 

 legal right, produces an injury or wrong. If it be a dangerous one 

 to society, the public authorities take cognizance of it, as a public 

 crime ; otherwise it is regarded as a private wrong, for which the 

 injured party has a civil remedy ; whether it relates to his lands, 

 goods, person, or reputation. The redress usually sought, is the 

 recovery, either of some specific article of property, or of damages, 



