Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/26

14 and tends mot to the ecurity of the world ; by removing one murderer from the earth, and etting a dreadful example to deter others : o that even this grand intance proceeds upon other principles than thoe of retaliation. And truly, if any meaure of punihment is to be taken from the damage utained by the ufferer, the punihment ought rather to exceed than equal the injury : ince it eems contrary to reaon and equity, that the guilty (if convicted) hould uffer no more than the innocent has done before him ; epecially as the uffering of the innocent is pat and irrevocable, that of the guilty is future, contingent, and liable to be ecaped or evaded. With regard indeed to crimes that are incomplete, which conit merely in the intention, and are not yet carried into act, as conpiracies and the like ; the innocent has a chance to frutrate or avoid the villany, as the conpirator has alo a chance to ecape his punihment : and this may be one reaon why the lex talionis is more proper to be inflicted, if at all, for crimes that conit in intention, than for uch as are carried into act. It eems indeed cononant to natural reaon, and has therefore been adopted as a maxim by everal theoretical writers, that the punihment, due to the crime of which one falely accues another, hould be inflicted on the perjured informer. Accordingly, when it was once attempted to introduce into England the law of retaliation, it was intended as a punihment for uch only as preferred malicious accuations againt others ; it being enacted by tatute 37 Edw. III. c. 18. that uch as preferred any uggetions to the king's great council hould put in ureties of taliation ; that is, to incur the ame pain that the other hould have had, in cae the uggetion were found untrue. But, after one year's experience, this punihment of taliation was rejected, and imprionment adopted in it's tead

though from what has been aid it appears, that there cannot be any regular or determinate method of rating the Rh