Page:Ta Tsing Leu Lee; Being, The Fundamental Laws, and a Selections from the Supplementary Statutes, of the Penal Code of China.djvu/82

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I. Rebellion, is an attempt to violate the divine order of things on earth; for as the fruits of the earth are produced in regular ucceion under the influence of the preiding Spirit, o is their ditribution among the people regulated by the Sovereign, who is the acred ucceor to the eat of his ancetors: reiing and conpiring againt him is, therefore, an unpeakable outrage, and a diturbance of the peace of the univere.

II. Diloyalty, is evinced by an attempt to detroy the imperial temples, tombs, or palaces; for as the imperial temples and tombs are intended to perpetuate the memory, and to receive the remains, of former Soverrigns, o the imperial palaces, being deigned for the ue of the reigning monarch, are equally acred and inviolable.

III. Deertion, is a term which may be applied to the offence of undertaking to quit, or betray the interets of, the empire, in order to ubmit or adhere to a foreign power, and may be conidered as exemplified in the cae of betraying a military pot, or exciting the people to emigration.

IV. Patricide, is the denomination under which the murder of a father or mother, of an uncle, aunt, grandfather or grandmother, is comprehended, and is a crime of the deepet dye; for uch a violation of the ties of nature, which are contituted by the Divine Will, is in every cae an evidence of the mot unprincipled depravity.

V. Maacre, is held to be the murder of three or more perons in one family, and comprehends other crimes guinary and enormous in a imilar degree. Rh