of those who are skilled in the nature and effects of poison, which is of various sorts, and most subtile in its operation. From the information of such persons you will be able to form an opinion upon the effects which different poisons have on different persons; and also of the effects the same poisons have on persons of different habits and constitutions. If you find he did get his death by poison, the next case is, to consider who gave him that poison. Where poison is knowingly given, and death ensues, it is wilful murder; and if one is present when poison is given by another, he is not an accessary but a principal"."

§ 16. In all civilized countries the honour and chastity of the female sex are guarded from violence by the severest sanctions of law and this protection is at once humane, just, and necessary to social morality. It is consonant to humanity that weakness should be secured against the attacks of brutal strength; it is just that the most sacred of all personal property should be preserved from invasion; and it is essential to morality that licentious passion should be restrained, that modesty should not be wounded, nor the mind contaminated, in some instances, before it is capable of

Hist. Sketches of Civil Liberty, p. 209.

forming adequate conceptions of right and wrong. The crime of rape, therefore, subjects the perpetrator to condign punishment by every code of jurisprudence, ancient or modern2. Amongst the Jews death was inflicted, if the damsel was betrothed to another man; and, if not betrothed, a fine amounting to fifty shekels of silver was to be paid to her father by him who had "laid hold of the virgin," and she was to become his wife; and, "because he had humbled her, he might not put her away all his daysa:"-for the privilege of divorce was authorized by the Jewish institutions. The Romans made this offence capital, superadding the confiscation of goods. Even the carrying off a woman from her parents or guardians, and cohabiting with her, whether accomplished by force or with her full consent, were made equally penal with a rape, by an imperial edict. For the Roman law seems to have supposed, that women never deviate from virtue without being seduced by the arts of the other sex; and, therefore, by imposing a powerful restraint on the solicitations of men, they aimed at a more effectual security of the chastity of women. Nisi etenim eam solicitaverit, nisi odiosis artibus circumvenerit, non faciet eam velle in tantum dedecus sese pro

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z See Notes and Illustrations, No. XV.

a Deut. xxii. 25, 28, 29.

dere." But the English law, as Judge Blackstone has observed, does not entertain such sublime ideas of the honour of either sex, as to lay the blame of a mutual fault on one only of the transgressors; and it is therefore essential to the crime of rape, that the woman's will is violated by the execution. But, by a statute of Queen Elizabeth, if the crime be perpetrated on a female child under the age of ten years, the consent or non-consent is immaterial, as she is supposed to be of insufficient judgement. Sir Matthew Hale is even of opinion, that such profligacy committed on an infant under twelve years, (the age of female discretion by common law,) either with or without consent, amounts to a rape and felony. But the decisions of the courts have generally been founded on the statute abovementioned.

A male infant under the age of fourteen years is deemed by the law incapable of committing, and therefore cannot be found guilty of, a rape, from a presumed imbecility both of body and mind. This detestable crime being executed in secrecy, and the knowledge of it being confined to the party injured, it is just that her single testimony should be adducible in proof of the fact. Yet the excellent observation of Sir Matthew Hale merits

[Comment., bk. iv. ch. 15. vol. iv. p. 210.]

e [It is now created a misdemeanour by statute ]

peculiar attention: "It is an accusation," says he,

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easily to be made, and hard to be proved; and harder to be defended by the party accused, though never so innocent." He then relates two extraordinary cases of malicious prosecution for this crime, which had fallen under his own cognizance; and concludes, "I only mention these instances, that we may be the more cautious upon trials of offences of this nature, wherein the court and jury may, with so much ease, be imposed upon, without great care and vigilance; the heinousness of the offence many times transporting the judge and jury with so much indignation, that they are over-hastily carried to the conviction of the person accused thereof, by the confident testimony sometimes of malicious and false witnesses." Collateral and concurrent circumstances of time and place, appearances of violence on examination, &c., are, therefore, necessary to be added to the mere affirmative evidence of the prosecutor; and the inspection of a Surgeon is often required, to ascertain the reality of the alleged violence. On such occasions his testimony should be given with all possible delicacy, as well as with the utmost caution. Even external signs of injury may originate from disease,

[Hist. Placit. Coronae, Pt. i. ch. 58. vol. i. p. 635.]

* These circumstances are particularly adverted to in the Mosaic Law. See Deut. xxii. 25-27.

of which the following examples, which have occurred in Manchester, are adduced on very respectable authorities.

A girl about four years of age was admitted into the Manchester Infirmary on account of a mortification in the female organs, attended with great soreness, and general depression of strength. She had been in bed with a boy fourteen years old, and there was reason to suspect that he had taken criminal liberties with her. The mortification increased, and the child died. The boy, therefore, was apprehended, and tried at the Lancaster assizes; but was acquitted on sufficient evidence that several instances of a similar disease had appeared, near the same period of time, in which there was no possibility of injury or guilt. In one of these cases the body was opened after death. The disorder had been a typhus fever, accompanied with a mortification of the pudenda. There was no evident cause of this extraordinary symptom discoverable on inspection. The lumbar glands were of a dark colour; but all the viscera were sound.

§ 17. Concerning nuisances, the investigation and testimony of the Faculty may be required, whenever they are of a nature offensive by the vapours which they emit, and injurious to the health of individuals or of the community. The