Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/200

 i88 PUBLIC BOOK IV,

voluntary banifliment for a year e. In Saxony a fine is paid to the kindred of the flain j which alfo, among the weftern Goths, was little inferior to that of voluntary homicide f : and in France 6 no perfon is ever abfolved in cafes of this nature, without a largefa to the poor, and the charge of certain mafles for the foul of the party killed.

THE penalty inflifted by our laws is faid by fir Edward Coke to have been antiently no lefs than death h ; which however is with reafon denied by later and more accurate writers '. It feems rather to have confifted in a forfeiture, fome fay of all the goods and chattels, others of only part of them, by way of fine or iveregild^ : which was probably difpofed of, as in France, in pios ttfus, according to the humane fuperilition of the times, for the be- nefit of his foul, who was thus fuddenly fent to his account, with all his imperfections on his head. But that reafon having long ceafed, and the penalty (efpecially if a total forfeiture) growing more fevere than was intended, in proportion as perlbnal property has become more confiderable, the delinquent has now, and has had as early as our records will reach ', a pardon and writ of refti- tution of his goods as a matter of courfe and right, only paying for fuing out the fame m. And indeed, to prevent this expenfe, in cafes where the death has notorioufly happened by mifadven- ture or in felf-defence, the judges will ufually permit (if not diredl) a general verdift of acquittal n.

III. FELONIOUS homicide is an aft of a very different nature from the former, being the killing of a human creature, of any

c To this expiation by hanifhment the k 2 Inft. 148.315. fpirit of Patroclus in Homer may be thought ' > Hal. P. C. 425. i Hawk. P, C. 75. to allude, when he reminds Achilles, in the Foft. 282, &V. twenty third Iliad, that, when a child, he k Foft. 287. was obliged to flee his country for cafually ' Foft. 283. killing his playfellow ; " v/imcf, sx <Sa." ro 2 Hawk. P. C, 381. 1 Stiernh. de jure Goth. I. 3. c. 4. Foft, 288. De Mornay on the digeft.

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