CHAPTER IV. 



PUNISHMENT BY MAN. 



THE history of the punishments inflicted by man on the lower 

 animals possesses many features of great interest. 



In the first place, assuming apparently the moral respon- 

 sibility of certain animals, their equal culpability with man 

 for the same kinds of offence or crime, they have been put 

 through the same forms of public trial, and subjected to the 

 same forms of public punishment. More especially was this 

 the case in the earliest ages in scriptural days, in classical 

 times, those connected with the history of ancient Greece 

 and Rome in the climax of their prosperity, and in the 

 Middle Ages. But though such trials are seldom or never 

 now heard of, such punishments are by no means unknown, 

 even in our own times, and in our own country. The 

 old Mosaic Law (as set forth in Genesis, ix. 5, and Exodus, 

 xxi. 28) provides for the equal punishment, on the ground 

 of equal responsibility, of certain animals with man. Thus, 

 the ox that killed a man was liable to death-punishment, 

 ' just as if it had been a man who had murdered any of his 

 fellows ' (Wood). An ox was accused of homicide by Moses ; 

 a goat and ass were condemned to burning, as recorded 

 in Leviticus. The primitive laws of Moses, of the ancient 

 Hebrews, were followed by similar jurisprudence or legisla- 

 tion in ancient Athens and Rome. The Greeks and Romans of 

 the classical era had regular legal procedure concerning, passed 

 formal judgments upon animal offences, real and supposed 

 procedure that has been described by Dernocritus, Domitian, 

 and other classical writers. The well-known laws of Draco 

 and Lycurgus made provision for the formal and public trial 

 of animal criminals. In Athens a special court, called the 

 Prytanseum, was established for the hearing of law-suits to 



