Trials of Animals. 37 
occurs in English tradition, but, in one sense, animals 
here were proceeded against in cases of their killing, 
accidentally or otherwise, a human being. Eor instance, 
if a horse should strike his keeper, and so kill him, the 
horse was to be a deodand. He was to be sold, and his 
price given to the poor in expiation of the calamity and 
for the appeasing of the Divine wrath. It is curious to 
note that these statutes have only been repealed in the 
present century. 
These trials probably had their origin in the Levitical 
law, as propounded in the twenty-first chapter of Exodus. 
Here we find that the punishment of the owner of an ox 
that had gored a man or a woman varied according to the 
rank of the individual, but in every case the ox was to be 
put to death by the cruel process of stoning, and its flesh 
was prohibited as food. 
Topsell tells how some lions, which had grown so bold 
that they would attack men, were turned into scarecrows 
as a warning to their fellows: 
“ Polybius affirmeth that be saw them besiege and compasse about 
many citties of Affricke, and therefore the people tooke and hanged 
them up upon crosses and gallowses by the high waies to the terror of 
others.” (Page 464.) 
The following passage in The Merchant of Venice 
(iv. 1) suggests the inquiry whether Shakspeare wittingly 
or by error of memory applied this punishment to man- 
eating wolves 
“ Gratiano. 0, be thou damn’d, inexecrable dog! 
And for thy life let justice be accus’d. 
Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith, 
To hold opinion with Pythagoras, 
That souls of animals infuse themselves 
Into the tranks of men: thy currish spirit 
Govern’d a wolf, who, bang’d for human slaughter, 
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, 
And, whilst thou lav’st in thy unhallow’d dam, 
Infus’d itself in thee; for thy desires 
Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.” 
