July 13, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



43 



riage, and has paid part of the dowry, he is bound by 

 this act and cannot withdraw his word. Difficult cases 

 appear to have required the light of the highest authorities 

 in the bar. One tablet bears the seals of seven judges 

 and two scribes. The tablets recording the most impor- 

 tant cases involving new points were copied, very often 

 at the request of lawyers, for if the decision recorded 

 was brought as argument the tablet or its copy had to be 

 produced. After every law suit the original tablet bear- 

 ing the seals of the magistrates was kept by the scribe 

 who had drawn it, but every party concerned received a 

 copy. This explains how we possess several copies of 

 the same document. 



The criminal and civil cases were dealt with in much 

 the same way, but in the former the accused was 

 generally put under arrest, and kept in prison till his 

 case came before the court, even when the accusation 

 emanated from a private person. The prisoners so kept 

 in suspicion were sometimes very badly used, especially 

 when accused of political offences. We have the letter 

 of a magistrate who complains in a petition to the king 

 of having been accused by his enemies, and treated most 

 harshly when in prison. Many cases which, among us, 

 are considered as civil were by the Babylonians regarded 

 as criminals, such as repudiation without cause, the 

 refusal of a child to provide for his parents, etc. The 

 criminal court was probably held in a public building in 

 the centre of the town. The civil courts were held at 

 the gates of the town. 



Every magistrate was accompanied by his clerk, or 

 witness, as he was called, who answered exactly to the 

 French greffier. This special scribe read all the docu- 

 ments, and wrote the tablets giving the decisions of the 

 judge. As already stated, everything appears to have 

 been transacted in writing. The plaintiff or prosecutor 

 had to give his statement in writing, then the defendant 

 answered in writing; the witnesses, when called to the 

 bar might have given their statements in words, but they 

 were always taken down by the judge's clerk, and 

 from this, perhaps, came his name of " Witness." 

 Every statement or affidavit had to be accom- 

 panied by all the documents referred to therein, 

 what is called in our legal parlance "exhibits." This 

 last point was essential. A tablet, now in the British 

 Museum, records the ca'se of a slave who claimed the 

 rights of a citizen on the ground of his having been freed 

 by his late master, but not being able to produce the 

 tablet containing the deed of freedom, the judge declared 

 that he could not grant his request, and that he was to 

 remain a slave. 



In civil cases the penalties were limited to fines and 

 compensation to the injured party, the condemned was 

 seldom sent to prison, and even this was done only in 

 the event of his refusing, or of his inabilit}', to pay the 

 fine and compensation inflicted on him ; for the death of 

 a slave also — for slaves were ranked as properties — 

 money was received for compensation. Capital punish- 

 ment — mere decapitation by the means of a sword — 

 torture, mutilation, exile and imprisonment were 

 reserved for criminal offences, and judging from the very 

 few number of cases which have come under our notice, 

 the application of such penalties was of rare occurrence. 

 The Babylonians, like the Ninevites, appear to have 

 inflicted the most cruel forms of punishment on their 

 political enemies. 



When a criminal had been condemned he was placed 

 in a cart and driven about the town, while a herald 



announced the cause of his condemnation. In some cases 

 the criminal was even exhibited in the pillory in some 

 public place. There is in the British Museum a small 

 tablet which has been a puzzle to many scholars, for it 

 contains only one sentence, apparenlly unfinished. This 

 tablet merely gives the text which the herald had to 

 read aloud : " For having killed her own child," and 

 in connection with this custom can be easily understood. 



There was no court of appeal among the Babylonians ; 

 when the prisoner was condemned his fate was gene- 

 rally sealed. He had, however, one resource — the right 

 of petition to the King. The kings, as a rule, were 

 most conscientious, and took into consideration every 

 letter addressed to them ; if a judgment was evidently 

 unjust, there was every reason to believe that it would 

 be reversed. 



The Akkadian treatises spoken of above were con- 

 sidered as the base of the Babylonian law, but the laws, as 

 amended, modified, and explained by new edicts of the 

 kings, orders of the chief civil officers of the state, and 

 the legal precedents, were never codified officially ; if 

 private works existed on the matter, as is likely, none 

 have come down to us. The consequence is that to get 

 an accurate notion of the Babylonian laws, the student 

 has to go through an innumerable number of tablets 

 taking note of every special case and classifying them, 

 just as the compiler of our English laws has to do if he 

 wishes to produce a book of references, but with this dis- 

 advantage, that many important Babylonian documents 

 may be lost, or still buried in Mesopotamia. The labour 

 through which we have to go may give us an idea of 

 the important part played by the legal scribe in every 

 law suit in Babylon. 



Another point deserves a special mention, that is the 

 influence exercised by the Babylonian laws and customs 

 on those of other nations. The Babylonian influence on 

 Greek art, literature, religion, and philosophy has 

 recently been recognised, but the laws and customs are 

 no exception. If the Greeks borrowed from Mesopo- 

 tamia the custom of burning the dead, they must have 

 adopted others also. In fact, when going through these 

 legal tablets one cannot help being struck by the exist- 

 ence of laws and customs which have been continued by 

 the Greeks and Romans. If our lawyers study the Jus- 

 tinian Code, why should they despise and neglect the 

 Babylonian laws? These have, historically, perhaps even 

 a greater importance. 



What are Microaerolites? — We are fully convinced 

 of the occurrence of the shooting stars which occasion- 

 ally traverse the heavens and of the meteoric stones of 

 different sizes which sometimes fall from the depths of 

 space. But it is not so decided whether or not the earth 

 receives true showers of cosmic dust. M. Demoulin has 

 collected and examined the inorganic dust brought down 

 by the rain at Grignon in the Cote d'Or, in France. He 

 calls these dust grains, microaerolites. They seem to 

 belong to three distinct types. One kind is globular, 

 very black and highly magnetic, closely resembling fer- 

 ruginous globules obtained by incandescence. Those of 

 the second type are of a sponge-like structure, resembling 

 minute corals. These also are very magnetic. The third 

 type are small stony masses of variable colour. Among 

 them may be distinguished small black granules which 

 are in general but slightly magnetic. 



