I. Mayhem is an offence tending to deprive the sovereign of the aid and assistance of his subjects; and by the ancient law he that maimed any man whereby he lost any part of his body, was sentenced to lose the like part; membrum pro membro. This went out of use: partly because the law of retaliation is at best an inadequate rule of punishment; and partly because upon a repetition of the offence, the punishment could not be repeated. Several statutes were accordingly passed to put the crime and punishment of mayhem out of doubt, the most severe and effectual of which was the Coventry Act; passed in the reign of Charles II. on the occasion of an assault on Sir John Coventry in the street, and slitting his nose, in revenge for some obnoxious words uttered by him in Parliament. But this offence has entirely lost its distinctive character in the more general provisions of the law for the protection of the person from acts of violence, the leading principle of which is to make the offence, and of course its punishment, to depend, in a great measure, on the intent of the offender.

II. The next offence to be mentioned under this head relates to the female part of the community, being that of their forcible abduction and marriage, which is vulgarly called stealing an heiress. This offence was first made a felony by 3 Hen. VII. c. 2. It remained capital till the reign of George IV.; and is still a felony, and may be punished with penal servitude for a term not exceeding fourteen years.

An inferior degree of the same kind of offence, taking away any woman child unmarried, was first punished by 4 & 5 Ph. & Mar. c. 8. It is now a misdemeanor, punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both; and the offence is complete, although the girl goes voluntarily.

III. A third offence also against the female part of the community, but attended with greater aggravation is rape, raptus mulierum, or the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will.

This crime was punished by the Saxon laws with death, but this was afterwards thought too hard, and in its stead another severe, but not capital punishment, was inflicted by William the Conqueror, viz., castration and loss of eyes, which continued till the reign of Henry III. Under Edward I., the punishment was

mitigated; but this lenity being productive of terrible consequences, it was in 13 Edw. I. found necessary to make the offence felony. And afterwards, by 18 Eliz. c. 7, it was made capital; and so remained till the reign of George IV., the extreme limit of punishment being now penal servitude for life. To abuse a girl under the age of twelve is felony, punishable in the same manner; the same offence committed on a girl above twelve and under thirteen, whether with or without her consent is, by 38 & 39 Vict. c. 91, s. 4, a misdemeanor, and much less penal; but on what ground this extraordinary distinction has been made, it is impossible to imagine.

As to the material facts requisite to be given and proved upon an indictment of rape, and other offences against women, they are not to be publicly discussed, except only in a court of justice. But with regard to the credibility of the chief witness, how far she is to be believed must be left to the jury. Thus: if the witness be of good fame; if she presently discovered the offence, and made search for the offender; if the party accused fled for it; these and the like are concurring circumstances, which give probability to her evidence. On the other side, if she be of evil fame, and stand unsupported by others; if she concealed the injury for any considerable time after she had opportunity to complain; if the place, where the fact was alleged to be committed, was where it was possible she might have been heard, and she made no outcry; these and the like circumstances, if unexplained, carry a strong, but not conclusive, presumption, that her testimony is false or feigned.

A charge of rape can only be sustained when the offence was committed against the will of the woman. If the consent be obtained by fraud, it is no rape; but the law extends its protection to females under twenty-one, against such frauds; whoever by false pretences, or other fraudulent means, procures a female to have illicit connection with a man, being guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment, accompanied with hard labour, for two years.

IV. What has been observed with regard to the proof of rape, may be applied to another offence, the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature. It will be better to imitate in this respect the delicacy of the law, which treats it, in its very

indictments, 'as a crime not fit to be named: peccatum illud horribile, inter christianos non nominandum.

The inferior offences against the personal security of the subject are assaults, batteries, wounding, false imprisonment, and kidnapping.

V. VI. VII. Assaults, batteries, and wounding, as breaches of the peace, are indictable and punishable at common law with fine and imprisonment. Some of these, however, although unlawful when committed on any person, acquire a higher degree of guilt when committed on persons in particular situations, or exercising peculiar duties, and to them consequently the law affords greater protection. Thus, by the articuli cleri, 9 Edw. II., to lay violent hands upon a clergyman, exposed the delinquent to three kinds of prosecution; an indictment for the breach of the peace; a civil action, for the damage sustained by the party injured; and a suit in the ecclesiastical court, first, pro correctione et salute animæ, by enjoining penance, and then again for such sum of money as should be agreed on for taking off the penance enjoined. The statute of Edward II. is repealed; and the only special protection now given to the clergy consists in its being made a misdemeanor to obstruct a clergyman in, or arrest him upon civil process, while he is performing or about to perform, or returning from the performance of, divine service.

Assaults on magistrates and gamekeepers are in certain cases severely punishable, as are likewise assaults on officers of workhouses, and on relieving and other officers acting under the poor laws. So are assaults committed in pursuance of a conspiracy to raise the rate of wages; assaults by masters on apprentices or servants, by husbands on their wives, and by parents and others on children.

The punishment for an assault is usually imprisonment, or fine, or both; but the court may, in cases of indecent assault, and assaults occasioning actual bodily harm, add hard labour. Common assaults and batteries usually are dealt with by the magistrates, under their summary jurisdiction, committing the offender to the house of correction, or imposing a fine.

VIII. False imprisonment is a misdemeanor at common law; the most atrocious degree of it, that of sending any subject of this realm a prisoner into parts beyond the seas, is a prœmunire ; inferior degrees of it are punishable, on indictment, if need be, by fine and imprisonment.

IX. Kidnapping, or the forcible abduction or stealing away of a man, woman, or child, from their own country, and sending them into another, was capital by the Jewish and civil laws. It was formerly as a misdemeanour punished with fine, imprisonment, and the pillory; but the offence of child-stealing is now a felony, for which penal servitude for seven years may be imposed. The cognate offence of forcing a seamen on shore from a vessel, and leaving him, is also punishable. The wrongful discharge of seamen, whether in British or foreign ports is prevented by masters of vessels being required, under the penalty of being guilty of a misdemeanor, to obtain formal certificates as to the grounds of the discharge from consular officers, or merchants resident in the place where the discharge takes place.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF OFFENCES AGAINST THE HABITATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS.

THE only two offences that affect the habitations of individuals are arson and burglary.

I. Arson, ab ardendo, is the malicious and wilful burning of the house or outhouse of another man; for not only the bare dwelling-house, but all outhouses that are parcel thereof, though not contiguous thereto, nor under the same roof, as barns and stables, may be the subject of arson; and this by the common law. Setting fire to a dwelling-house, any person being therein, till recently a capital felony, is now punishable, it may be, by penal servitude for life. Setting fire to a church or chapel, office, shop, mill, malthouse, or granary; or to any building used in trade or manufacture; or to farm buildings, or to any station or other building belonging to a railway, dock, or canal, or to any public building, is also felony, punishable in the same manner.

As to what shall be said to be a burning, so as to amount to arson, a bare intent, or attempt to do it, by actually setting fire to a house, unless it absolutely burns, did not fall within the description of incendit et combussit; which were words necessary, in the days of law-Latin, to all indictments of this sort. The burning and consuming of any part was, however, sufficient; though the fire were afterwards extinguished; but the offence now consists in setting fire to the building, and consequently it is not necessary that it should be burnt or actually consumed. And it must be a malicious burning; otherwise it is only a trespass, and therefore no negligence or mischance amounts to it.

The punishment of arson was death by the Saxon laws. And in the reign of Edward I. this sentence was executed by a kind of lex talionis: for the incendiaries were burnt to death. A statute of Henry VI. made the wilful burning of houses in some cases high treason; but it was reduced to felony under Edward VI. and Mary; and for a long period afterwards was subject to the punishment of all felonies, namely, hanging. No offence of this description is now capital.

Some cognate offences, however, are highly penal. Thus whoever by gunpowder, or other explosive substance, destroys, or damages a dwelling-house, any person being therein; or destroys or damages a building, whereby the life of any person is endangered, is guilty of felony, and may be sent to penal servitude for life. The law indeed looks upon offences of this nature so seriously, that diverging from the usual rule as to attempts, it has made the attempt to blow up buildings, although it fails, also a felony, but not so penal in its consequences.

II. Burglary, or nocturnal housebreaking, burgi latrocinium, which by our ancient law was called ham-socn, or, as it is in Scotland to this day, hame-sucken, has always been looked upon as a very heinous offence; the law paying so tender a regard to the immunity of a man's house, that it styles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with impunity. A burglar, then, is he that by night breaketh and entereth into a mansionhouse, with intent to commit a felony.

The time must be by night; for in the daytime there is no burglary; and night now, with reference to this offence, com