Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/179

 lest the accused should be hastily condemned, Moses incorporated in his statutes that provision, which is deemed one of the greatest securities of modern law, that a man should not be convicted of a capital crime on the testimony of a single witness.

An additional barrier to a rash and unjust decision was the severity with which the law punished perjury. Whoever testified against another falsely, was liable to the penalty of the very crime of which he had accused his neighbor: "Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother. And thine eye shall not pity, but life shall go for life." With such a retribution in prospect, few would attempt to swear away the life of an enemy. If the accused were condemned to die, when brought to the place of execution, the witnesses against him were required to throw the first stones. The most hardened villain, who had carried a brazen front through all the forms of trial, could hardly support this crowning infamy of being the executioner of an innocent man. He would tremble, and turn pale, and the fatal stone would drop from his perjured hand.

Perhaps nothing shows more the spirit of a law than the modes of execution for those who are to suffer its extreme penalty. Some may think, if a man is to die, it matters little in what way he is put to death. But if it affects not the fate of the criminal, it does matter as indicating the spirit of a people. Barbarous nations generally choose the most savage and cruel modes of punishment. Modern refinement has introduced the scaffold and the guillotine as the least revolting form of execution. Soldiers who disobey orders, have the honor of being shot, while vulgar criminals are hanged.

But it is not two hundred years since torture was