Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/214

 202 PUBLIC BOOK IV.

it, were put to death for this enormous crime k. But now, by tatute 23 Hen. VIII. c. i. and 1 Edw. VI. c. 12. the benefit of clergy is taken away from murder though malice prepene. In atrocious cafes it was frequently ufual for the court to direct the murderer, after execution, to be hung upon a gibbet in chains, near the place where the fact was committed : but this was no part of the legal judgment ; and the like is ftill fometimes prac- ticed in the cafe of notorious thieves. This, being quite con- trary to the exprefs command of the mofaical law ', feems to have been borrowed from the civil law ; which, belides the terror of the example, gives alfo another reafon for this prac- tice, viz. that it is a comfortable fight to the relations and friends of the deceafed m. But now in England, it is enacted by ftatute 25 Geo. II. c. 37. that the judge, before whom a murderer is convicted, fhall in palling fentence direct him to be executed on the next day but one, (unlefs the fame fhall be funday, and then on the monday following) and that his body be delivered to the furgeons to be diffected and anatomized n ; and that the judge may direct his body to be afterwards hung in chains, but in no wife to be buried without direction. And, during the fhort but awful interval between fentence and exe- cution, the prifoner fhall be kept alone, and fuflained with only bread and water. But a power is allowed to the judge, upon good and fufficient caufe, to refpite the execution, and relax the other reftraints of this act.

BY the Roman law, parricide, or the murder of one's parents or children, was punifhed in a much feverer manner than any other kind of homicide. After being fcourged, the delinquents were fewed up in a leathern fack, with a live dog, a cock, a vi-

1 " The body of a rnalefaftor fliall not "j'feflu deterreantur alii, et folntio fit ccgna- " remain all night upon the tree; but thou " tis interemptorum, eodem loco poena reddita, " flialt in any wile bury him in that day, " in quo latrones btmicidiafeciffent" Ff. 48. " that the land benot defiled. "Deut.xxi. 23. 19. 28. . 15. per,
 * i Hal. P. C. 450. "fati funt, furca fgendos flacttit ; ut, et ton-
 * " Ft:mofes latrtnes, in bii hcis* ubi graf- * Foft. 107.