[parents or children, was punished in a much severer manner than any other kind of homicide. After being scourged, the delinquents were sewed up in a leathern sack, with a live dog, a cock, a viper and an ape, and so cast into the sea (v). Solon, however, in his laws made none against parricide; apprehending it impossible that any one should be guilty of so unnatural a barbarity (x). And the Persians, (according to Herodotus,) entertained the same notion, when they adjudged all persons who killed their reputed parents to be bastards (y).] And in like manner our English laws make no particular provision with regard to this crime, so as to distinguish it in any respect from that of simple murder (z). Yet formerly, where a servant killed his master, a wife her husband,-or an ecclesiastical person, (either secular or regular,) his superior, to whom he owed faith and obedience (a),—this was accounted [a species of treason, called parva proditio or petit treason (b).] From which it followed that, in the particular case also where a parricide was committed, by one who happened to stand in the relation of servant to his parent, he was guilty of petit treason, though the crime was so ranked under no other circumstances (c). For all these cases involved, in contemplation of law, not only murder, but murder aggravated by a species of treason; on account of the violation of private allegiance (d). [And thus in the antient Gothic

(v) Ff. 41, 9, 9.

(z) Cic. pro S. Roscio, s. 25. (y) Clio, c. 137.

(z) Blackstone (vol. iv. p. 202) seems inclined to attribute the want of any distinction with regard to parricide in our law, to the same assumption on the part of its founders as is referred to in the text, viz., that of the impossibility of the crime.

(a) “A clergyman," (says Blackstone, vol. iv. p. 203) "is understood

[constitutions, we find the breach both of natural and civil relations, ranked in the same class with crimes against the state and the sovereign (e).] Nor was the distinction merely nominal,-the punishment being more exemplary than in the case of simple murder: the sentence for petit treason, in a man, being to be drawn and hanged (ƒ); and, in a woman, to be drawn and burned. But the crime of petit treason is now abolished; it being provided by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 8, that such homicides as amounted to that offence before 9 Geo. IV. c. 31 (g), shall be now deemed to be murder only, and no greater offence.

II. Attempts to murder (h).—Not only the crime of actual murder, but that of endeavouring to commit it, until very recently, in certain cases, amounted to a capital felony (i). This crime, however, is no longer punishable with death under any circumstances, and the existing enactments concerning it are contained in 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100; which provides (sect. 11) that whosoever shall administer to (k), or cause to be administered to or be taken by, any person, any poison or other destructive thing; or

(e) "Omnium gravissima censetur vis, facta ab incolis in patriam, subditis in regem, liberis in parentes, maritis in uxores (et vice versa), servis in dominos, aut etiam ab homine in semet-ipsum."-Stiernh. de Jure Goth. 1. 2, c. 3.

(f) 1 Hale, P. C. 382; 3. Inst. 211. Blackstone (vol. iv. p. 203) remarks that this punishment of burning, in the case of the woman, seems to be handed down to us by the laws of the antient Druids; which condemned a woman (see Cæs. de Bell. Gall. 1. 6, c. 19) to be burned for murdering her husband. It was, however, the usual punishment (until lately) for all treasons committed by those of the female

VOL. IV.

(g) The statute 9 Geo. 4, c. 31, contained an enactment that homicides, then amounting to petit treason, shall in future be deemed murder only; but that statute was repealed by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 95.

(h) As to a conspiracy to commit murder, vide post, c. IX. As to threatening murder, vide post, c. x.

(i) Under 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. 85 (repealed by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 95), attempting to commit murder by poisoning, wounding, &c., was punishable with death.

(k) As to what constitutes an administration of poison, see R. v. Michael, 9 Car. & P. 356.

M

shall by any means whatsoever wound or cause any grievous bodily harm to any person, with intent in any of the cases aforesaid to commit murder (1),-shall be guilty of felony, and on conviction may be sentenced to penal servitude for life, or for not less than three years; or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement. And by sect. 14, whosoever shall attempt to administer to, or attempt to cause to be administered to or to be taken by, any person, any poison or other destructive thing; or who shall shoot at any person (m); or shall by drawing a trigger, or in any other manner, attempt to discharge any kind of loaded arms at any person; or shall attempt to drown, suffocate or strangle any person;-with intent, in any of the cases aforesaid, to commit murder, shall (whether any bodily injury be effected or not) be guilty of felony, and liable to the same punishments as just mentioned. By sect. 13 of the same Act, whosoever shall set fire to, cast away, or destroy, any ship or vessel, with such intent, shall be liable to be similarly punished. And by the 12th section, whosoever by the explosion of gunpowder or other explosive substance, shall destroy or damage any building, with such intent, shall be liable to be similarly punished. Moreover, the same Act contains (sect. 15) a general provision making it felony (and awarding the same punishments as already mentioned) for any person to attempt to commit murder, by any means other than those above specified (n).

III. Acts causing, or tending to cause, danger to life or bodily harm.

Mayhem, (whence the modern term of maim,) is a

(1) The jury must be satisfied of the intention to murder. See R. v. Cruise, 8 Car. & P. 541.

(m) See Reg. v. Smith, 25 L. J. (M. C.) 29.

(n) By 14 & 15 Vict. c. 100, s. 9,

on an indictment charging the actual commission of any felony or misdemeanor, there may be a verdict that the party accused was not guilty of the offence charged, but was guilty of an attempt to commit the same.

civil injury (o); consisting, as we may remember, [in the violently depriving another of the use of such of his members, as may render him the less able, in fighting, either to defend himself or to annoy his adversary.] But it is also a heinous crime; and by the antient law of England, he that maimed any man whereby he lost any part of his body was sentenced to lose the like part, membrum pro membro (p). But this went afterwards out of use: so that by the common law, as it for a long time stood, [mayhem was only punishable with fine and imprisonment (q); unless, perhaps, the offence of mayhem by castration, which all our old writers held to be felony; et sequitur aliquando pœna capitalis, aliquando perpetuum exilium cum omnium bonorum ademptione" (r). And this, although the mayhem was committed on the highest provocation (s).]

By different statutes, however, viz. 5 Hen. IV. c. 5, 37 Hen. VIII. c. 6, and 22 & 23 Car. II. c. 1,-called the Coventry Act (t),-specific provisions were, in course of time, made against the offence of maiming, cutting off, or disabling a limb or member (u).

(0) Vide sup. vol. 111. pp. 487, 488. (p) 3 Inst. 118. "Mes, si la pleynte soit faite de femme qu'avera tolle a home ses membres, en tiel case perdra la feme la une meyn per jugement, come le membre dount ele avera trespasse."-Brit. c. 55. Blackstone says, (vol. iv. p. 206,) that the law of membrum pro membro was in his time still in use in Sweden; and he cites Stiern. 1. 3, p. 3.

(q) Hawk. P. C. b. 1, c. 44, s. 3. (r) Br. 1. 3, tr. 2, c. 23.

(s) Sir E. Coke (3 Inst. 62) has transcribed a record of Henry the third's time (Claus. 13 Hen. 3, m. 9), by which a gentleman of Somersetshire and his wife appear to have been apprehended and committed to prison, being indicted for dealing thus with John the monk, who was

But these statutes also

caught in adultery with the wife.

(t) This Act was occasioned by an assault on Sir John Coventry, in the street, and slitting his nose; in revenge, (as was supposed,) for some obnoxious words uttered by him in parliament. (4 Bl. Com. 206.)

(u) The Coventry Act made it a capital felony to disable with intent to maim or to disfigure. On this statute Mr. Coke, a gentleman in Suffolk, and one Woodburn, a labourer, were indicted in 1722; Coke for hiring and abetting Woodburn, and Woodburn for the actual fact of slitting the nose of Mr. Crispe, Coke's brother-in-law. The case was somewhat singular. The murder of Crispe was intended, and he was left for dead, being terribly hacked and disfigured with a hedge

have been repealed, so far as regards the matter in question (v); and the provision now in force, viz. the 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 18, enacts that whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously by any means whatsoever, wound (x) or cause any grievous bodily harm to any person; or shoot at any person (y); or by drawing a trigger or in any other manner attempt to discharge any kind of loaded arms at any person (z), with intent in any of the above cases to maim, disfigure or disable, or to do some grievous bodily harm to any ⚫ person, or with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detaining of any person,-shall be guilty of felony, and be liable to the same punishment as for an attempt to murder (a). And that even without either of such intents being proved, whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any grievous bodily harm upon any other person, either with or without any weapon or instrument, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to penal servitude for three years, or imprisonment with or without

bill; but he recovered. Now the bare attempt to murder was, at common law, no felony; but to disfigure, with an intent to disfigure, is made so by this statute; on which they were therefore indicted. And Coke, who was a disgrace to the profession of the law, had the effrontery to rest his defence upon this point, that the assault was not committed with an intent to disfigure but to murder; and therefore was not within the statute. But the court held, that if a man attacks another to murder him with such an instrument as an hedge-bill, which cannot but endanger the disfiguring him; and in such an attack happens not to kill but only to disfigure him; he may be indicted on this statute: and it may be left to the jury to determine whether it were not a design to murder by disfiguring; and con

sequently a malicious intent to disfigure as well as to murder. Accordingly the jury found them guilty of such previous intent to disfigure, in order to effect their principal intent to murder; and they were both condemned and executed. (State Trials, vi. 212.)

(v) The Coventry Act was repealed by 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 27. (x) As to what amounts to 66 a wounding," see Jenning's case, 9 Car. & P. 130.

(y) See Smith's case, 1 Dearsley's C. C. 559. As to shooting by smugglers, &c., vide post, chap. XI.

(z) As to what are to be deemed "loaded arms," see 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 19.

(a) The punishments which may be awarded for an attempt to murder, are given sup. p. 162.