fine and imprisonment, and a prohibition against ever again giving testimony. Under the statute of Elizabeth, the offender was nailed by both ears to the pillory.

17. Bribery. This exists, when a judge or other person concerned in the administration of justice, takes any undue reward to influence his behavior in his office. In the east, it is customary never to petition any superior for justice, without tendering hin a gift. The Roman law, though containing injunctions against bribery, tacitly encouraged the practice; allowing the magistrate to receive small presents, restricting them to the value of one hundred crowns per annum. By the laws of Athens, he who offered was prosecuted, as well as he who received a bribe.1 In England this crime is punished by fine and imprisonment.

18. Embracery. This is an attempt to influence a jury corruptly by promises, persuasions, entreaties, money, entertainments, and the like. This offence is punishable by fine and imprisonment.

19. False Verdict. Whether this act of jurors was occasioned by embracery or not, it was considered criminal, and was punished by attaint.

20. Negligence of Public Officers. This applies to sheriffs, coroners, constables, and the like, and renders the offender liable to be fined. In notorious cases, it would lead to a forfeiture of the office.

21. Oppression and Partiality of Officials. This is a crime of deep malignity, and the power and wealth of the offenders often result in their immunity from punishment. It occasionally is exercised by judges, justices and magistrates, in the administration of their offices.

Punishment. When prosecuted, either by impeachment in parliament, or by information in the court of king's bench, according to the rank of the offenders, it is punished with forfeiture of their offices, also by fines, imprisonment or censure, regulated by the nature and aggravations of the offence.

22. Extortion. This is an abuse of public justice, which consists of an officer's unlawful taking, by color of his office, from any man, any money or thing of value, that is not due to

1 1t is equally a crime to give as to receive a bribe. It was formerly deemed so heinous an offence in judges, that in the reign of Edward III. the chief justice of England was hanged for it.

him, or more than is due, or before it is due. The punishment is by fine and imprisonment, and sometimes by a forfeiture of the office.

CHAPTER XI.-OFFENCES AGAINST THE PUBLIC

Defined.

PEACE.

These offences are either such as are an actual breach of the peace, or constructively so, by tending to make others break it. Both of these species are also either felonious or not felonious; statute law having made a few of them felonies. 1. Riotous Assemblages. Twelve or more persons, assembling for an unlawful purpose, and not dispersing on proclamation, constitute such an assemblage. By statute of George I. this offence is declared felony, without benefit of clergy.

2. Unlawful Hunting. Where it occurs in any legal forest or park, by night, or by parties with blackened faces or otherwise disguised.

3. Threatening Letters. Knowingly to send any letter without a name, or with a fictitious name, demanding money, or threatening without demand, to kill a king's subject or to fire his property, is made felony, without benefit of clergy.

4. Destruction of any Lock, Sluice or Flood-gate. This offence is a felony, where such structure was erected by authority of parliament on a navigable river. So also wilfully damaging banks of streams to obstruct navigation and injure the adjacent country. Also the destruction of any turnpike gate, fence or toll-house.

5. Affrays. This word is from the French affraier, to terrify, and signifies the fighting of two or more persons in some public place, to the terror of his majesty's subjects. If the fighting be in private, it is an assault, and not an affray. Affrays may be suppressed by any private person A constable or similar officer, whose duty it is to keep the peace, may break open doors to suppress an affray, or apprehend the affrayers. He may either carry them before a magistrate, or imprison them by his own authority temporarily, till the heat is over, and may then perhaps make them find sureties for the peace.

Punishment. Fine and imprisonment are usually inflicted, proportioned to the nature of the case.

Where Aggravated. A duel is an aggravated affray, though no mischief has ensued. Another aggravation is, when thereby officers of justice are disturbed in the due execution of their office. So also, where a respect to the particular place ought to restrain and regulate men's behavior, more than in ordinary cases.

In Churches and Churchyards. Affrays in churches or churchyards are esteemed very heinous offences, and even quarrelsome words, which are not an affray elsewhere, are considered so in such localities. Where a blow is struck, or one lay violent hands upon another in such sacred place, he shall be excomunicated; and where a weapon is drawn with wilful intent, or where it is used, the offender, besides excommunication, shall have an ear cut off, or having no ears, shall be branded on the cheek with the letter "F."

6. Riots. Routs and Unlawful Assemblies. Three persons at least are required to constitute an unlawful assembly. Their meeting must be with intent to commit an unlawful act, and they part without doing it, or making any motion towards it.

A Rout. A rout is, where three or more meet to do an unlawful act upon a common quarrel; as forcibly to break down fences upon an alleged right of way or common, and make some advances towards it.

A Riot. A riot is, where three or more actually do an unlawful act of violence, either with or without a common cause or quarrel; as if they beat a man, or hunt and kill game in another's park, or to do any other unlawful act with force and violence; or even do a lawful act, as removing a nuisance in a violent and tumultuous manner. The punishment of unlawful assemblies, to the number of twelve persons, was made capital in certain cases, but from the number of three to eleven by fine and imprisonment only. Formerly in riots and routs, the pillory in flagrant cases was superadded.2

How Suppressed. Any two justices, together with the sheriff or under-sheriff of the county, may come with the posse comitatus, if need be, and suppress such riot, unlawful assembly,

1 Women are punishable as rioters, but infants under the age of discretion are not. 2 The pillory is now abolished.

or rout, arrest the rioters, and on the spot make a record of the transaction; which record shall be a sufficient conviction of the offenders.

7. Tumultuous Petitioning. This was carried to a great length in the times preceding the grand rebellion. By statute of Charles II, no more than twenty names shall be signed to any petition to the king or either house of parliament, for the alteration of things established by law; unless the contents thereof be previously approved by three justices or by the majority of the grand jury, and in London by the lord mayor, aldermen and common council. No more than ten persons shall present this petition.

8. Forcible Entry or Detainer. This is committed by violently taking or keeping possession of lands and tenements with menaces, force and arms, and without the authority of law. This was formerly allowable to every person disseised, unless his entry was taken away or barred by his own neglect. The entry, now allowed by law, is a peaceable one, that only being forbidden, where maintained with violence and weapons. A justice or justices may examine a jury to try the forcible entry or detainer complained of; may fine, and compel restitution by means of the sheriff, without inquiring into the merits of the title. This may also be done by indictment at the general sessions. This provision does not extend to such as endeavor to obtain possession by force, where they or their ancestors have been in peaceable enjoyment of the lands for the preceding three years.

9. Carrying Deadly Weapons. The offence of riding or going armed with dangerous weapons is a crime against the public peace, by terrifying the people, and is particularly prohibited by statute. In Athens, by the law of Solon, a man was finable who walked about the city in armor.

10. Spreading False News. This is, where an attempt is made to cause discord between the king and nobility, or concerning any great man of the realm.

11. False and Pretended Prophecies. Where these are uttered with intent to disturb the peace, they are punishable, as they raise jealousies among the people, and terrify them with imaginary fears. In the reign of Edward VI, they were punished capitally.

12. Challenges to Fight. A challenge by word or letter, or to be the bearer of such challenge, is a punishable offence.

13. Libels. These signify any writings, pictures or the like, of an immoral or illegal tendency. But in the sense we now consider them, they are malicious defamations of a party, made public by either printing, writing, signs or pictures, in order to provoke him to wrath, or expose him to public hatred, contempt and ridicule. The direct tendency of these libels is the breach of public peace, by stirring up the objects of them to revenge and perhaps to bloodshed.

Falsity of the Libel. A communication of a libel to any person is a publication in the eye of the law; and therefore the sending of an abusive letter to a man is as much a libel as if printed, for it equally tends to a breach of the peace. For the same reason, it is immaterial, with respect to the essence of the libel, whether the matter of it be true or false, since the provocation, and not the falsity, is the thing to be punished criminally, though doubtless the falsity of it may aggravate its guilt or enhance its punishment. In a civil action, a libel must appear to be false as well as scandalous, for if the charge be true, the plaintiff has received no private injury, and has no ground to demand a compensation; therefore the truth of the accusation may be pleaded in bar of the suit.

Criminal Prosecution. In a criminal prosecution, the tendency which all libels have to create animosities, and to disturb the public peace, is all that the law considers, and, therefore, in such prosecutions the only points to be inquired into are: (1) making or publishing of the book or writing; (2) whether the matter be criminal; and if both these points are against the defendant, the offence against the public is complete.

Punishment. The punishment of such libelers, for either making, repeating, printing or publishing the libel, is fine, and such punishment as the court in its discretion shall inflict; regarding the quantity of the offence and the quality of the offender. By the law of the twelve tables at Rome, libels which affected the reputation of another were made capital offences, but before the reign of Augustus the punishmeut became corporal only. Under the emperor Valentinian, it was again made capital, not only to write, but to publish, or even to omit destroying them.

Liberty of the Press. Although blasphemous, immoral, treasonable, schismatical, seditious or scandalous libels are punishable by the English law, some with a greater, others with a