Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/632

* PUNISHMENT. 550 PUNJAB. tion. or reformation — holds absolute sway in our criminal codes. Generally there are traces of all three, although the tendency of recent develop- ment has been in the direction of reforming the criminal. In the early history of society the infliction of punishment for crime was left in the hands of the person wronged, or his kin, clan, or tribe. The punishments inflicted were usually char- acterized bj- cruelty and were out of proportion to the olfense committed. Indignities were fre- quently inflicted upon the body of a criminal after death. Wlien, moreover, certain standards concerning the degree of oll'ense came generally to be accepted, the punishment for the same of- fense varied according to the social rank of the injured party. In the course of time a system of fines was substituted for physical punishment. By the payment of a fine to the injured person or to his family, the ofl'ender was made free from liability to further punishment. With the increasing complexity of society and the development of the idea of the State, the right to punish was taken away from the offended party and vested in the State. Crimes came to be considered as ott'enses against the State, the social order, and punishment is now regarded as an act of social defense calculated to establish the inviolability of the law and to deter those who may bo criminally inclined from overstep- ping the limits of legally permissible conduct. Punishment, in criminal law, possesses four characteristics. First, it represents, objectively, some pain or damage inflicted upon an ofl'ender. Whether the person punished conceives the pun- ishment as a pain or danuige does not matter. Secondly, punishment is imposed by government as the representative of legal order in sotiety. Thirdly, it is determined and carried out as a consequence of judicial procedure and decision. Fourthly, it aims at some definite purpose, whether this purpose be the maintenance of order, retribution, or reformation. Punishments are of varying nature ; they may involve encroach- ment upon the life or physical integrity, on the personal liberty, on the property, or on the riglits and privileges of an ofl'ender. To the first of these classes belong capital punishment and such generally obsolete punishments as the cutting off of tongue or hands. In the second class we find deportation, imprisonment, and compulsory lalior. The third class includes fines and the confiscation or destruction, by the State, of an offender's property. As punishments of the fourth class, the criminal is often deprived of political or civil rights belonging to citizenship, such as the elec- toral franchise, capacity to testify in courts of justice, or to hold oflice. Forms of punishment formerly in vogue, but now discarded among civ- ilized nations generality, are mentioned under TORTUKE. Some of the qualities which 'ideal' punish- ments should possess, to correspond to modern ethical standards, are the following: (a) Moral- ity. Punishments should not stunt or destroy the moral sense of the culprit or of those wit- nessing the punishment, (b) Equality. Punish- ments should represent a damage or pain of equal importance or intensity to different offenders committing the same crime. This condition is difficult to fulfill, for the imposition of dift'erent punishments for one and the same crime seems to be a violation of democratic principles, while a fi.xed fine of say $100 for a specific offense represents a mucli severer punishment for a |joor man than for a man of wealth, (c) Personality. The evil effects of punishment should be confined to the ofl'ender alone, and not extend to innocent persons, (d) Elasticity. The punishment should be such that it can be varied to suit the various degrees of guilt. (e) Commensurability. The diverse punishments of the criminal code must be of such a kind that they may be compared with one another, and thus permit the judge to choose among several penalties that which corre- sponds in severity to the gravity of the offense, (f) Reparability. It should be possible, in case of judicial error to repair the injury done to a person unjustly condemned. Sometimes the laws prescribe a definite penalty for a specific oll'ense, and the judge then has no choice. Usually, however, he is permitted to elect among several penalties which the law per- mits for a given misdemeanor; lie may choose, for example, between "a fine of from .fl to $100 or imprisonment for a period not less than tliree days or more than three months." Theoretically the nature and method of punishment raiglit be left entirely to the discretion of the judge; but this system is unknown in practice. Bibliography. Beccaria, Crimes and Punish- ments; Maine, Anrient Law; Proal, Le crime et la peine (Paris, 1892); Wines, Pnnisjiment and Reformation (New York. 1805). See Penology; Criminology; Capital Pvnlsiiment. PUNJAB, pun-jab', or PANJAB (Hind., five rivers: the Jhelam, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej. Beas). A northwestern province of British India (q.v. ), bounded on the north by the Northwest Frontier Province and Kashmir, on the east by Tibet and the United Provinces of Agra, on the soutli by Rajputana and Sindh, and on the west by the Northwest Fnmtier Province (Jlap: India B 2). The last was in great part included in the Punjab until 1001, when it was constituted a separate province, thereby reducing the area of the Punjab to 1.3.3,741 square miles. Of this area 07.209 square miles are directly under British admin- istration, the remaining 30.532 square miles being occupied by a number of feudatory native States, of which the largest is Bahawalpur. The ex- treme northern part of the province lies among the footliills and projecting spurs of the Hima- layas, but the greater portion consists of an almost perfectly level plain sloping gently from an elevation of IfiOO feet at the base of the mountains to less than 200 feet in the extreme southwest. This plain is traversed by the Indus (which flows on (ir near the western boundary), and its great tributaries, the Jhelam, Chenab, Ravi, and Ghara, or Sutlej (the chief aflluciit of which is the Beas) . which all unite into the Panj- nad before they enter the main stream near the southwestern boundary. The climate of the plains is excessively hot and dry in summer, the tem- perature sometimes rising to 120°. The win- ters are cool, with occasional frosts at night. The rainfall ranges from 36 inches in the north to only 4 inches in the south, being in the greater portion insufficient for the needs of agriculture. Healthy vegetation is accordingly confined to narrow lands along the river courses, and the groat interfluvial tracts, known as doabs, are covered only with a scanty jungle of scrub, here and there affordina; pasturage. As in all parts of India, most of the inhab-