Edward Westermarck

The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas


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to crimes; the punishment most commonly prescribed by it was death.123 The penal code of China, though less cruel in various respects than the European legislation of the eighteenth century, awards death for a third and aggravated theft, for defacing the branding inflicted for former offences,124 and for privately casting copper coin;125 whilst for the commission of the most heinous crimes the penalty is “to be cut into ten thousand pieces,” which appears to amount, at least, to a license to the executioner to aggravate and prolong the sufferings of the criminal by any species of cruelty he may think proper to inflict.126 In Japan, before the revolution of 1871, “the punishments for crime had been both rigorous and cruel; death was the usual punishment, and death accompanied by tortures was the penalty for aggravated crimes.127 According to the Mosaic law, death is inflicted for such offences as breach of the Lord’s day,128 going to wizards,129 eating the fat of a beast of sacrifice,130 eating blood,131 approaching unto a woman “as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness,”132 and various kinds of sexual offences.133 The laws of Manu provide capital punishment for those who forge royal edicts and corrupt royal ministers;134 for those who break into a royal store-house, an armoury, or a temple, and those who steal elephants, horses, or chariots;135 for thieves who are taken with the stolen goods and the implements of burglary;136 for cut-purses on the third conviction;137 whilst a wife, who, proud of the greatness of her relatives or her own excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord, shall be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many, and the male offender shall be burnt on a red-hot iron bed.138

      118 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 454.

      119 Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 358.