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Read Ebook: Medical Jurisprudence Volume 3 (of 3) by Fonblanque J S M John Samuel Martin Paris John Ayrton
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Ebook has 1684 lines and 175787 words, and 34 pages
As the fact of absolute infancy may generally be ascertained by the mere view of the party, and his capacity ascertained by questions propounded by the court, an infant prisoner may, as before stated, be discharged without further trial; not so however in cases of idiotcy, madness, or lunacy, these must be tried by a jury, for they may easily be feigned, and it is therefore by evidence of previous conduct that the question is to be determined, rather than by reference to the prisoner's demeanor in court, which may probably be counterfeit.
Secondly, if he be then in a lucid interval, and therefore fit to be tried, whether he was so at the time of the act committed, and this must be tried according to the whole evidence both of the fact and the lunacy, on a plea of not guilty.
Pregnancy is a good plea in bar of execution; but it does not prevent trial or sentence; in a recent instance, however, when a woman was brought to the bar evidently in labour, she was remanded by the court; and query, whether this discretion ought not to be exercised in all cases of advanced pregnancy; for the agitation of the trial may be of more fatal effect than the judgment of the law, and the unfortunate woman, though acquitted, may perish with her child from the mere effect of mental distraction.
OF PUNISHMENTS.
Decapitation is also a punishment known in the law of England, and as a more dignified and impressive death, is reserved for the execution of nobles, or distinguished commoners, in cases of high treason, the rest of the barbarous sentence , and the previous sentence of hanging, being dispensed with by the king's authority.
The barbarous punishment of burning, formerly part of the law, is no longer in use; Catharine Hayes, to whose case we have alluded , was the last who suffered in this manner.
On the subject of imprisonment we have already commented, , and from the very general attention now excited, as well by the discovery of abuses, as by an encreasing spirit of humanity, we may expect the best results.
Of punishment, not capital, there are two which require medical consideration; the one is military flogging, the other the novel invention of the tread-mill. On the first of these, we might have had more cause to complain, had the old system of the army been continued; it is however due to the character of the present Commander in Chief to notice, that under his direction the punishment of flogging has been much diminished; regimental courts martial, composed of five officers , are now restricted in their sentences to the infliction of three hundred lashes; formerly double the number was deemed a moderate punishment; and there is good reason to believe, that the discipline of a regiment, and the capacity of a commanding officer, is no longer considered in the direct, but on the contrary, in the inverse ratio of the number of lashes inflicted: we need not say that the general state and conduct of troops has proved the policy of the alteration, we have only to hope that the improvement will be extended, and that the English army will not long be subjected to a degrading and barbarous torture, from which less moral men, and much worse soldiers, are exempted in every other service in Europe. It is necessary, however, that till this very desirable reform is effected, some observation should be made on the mode of inflicting this punishment.
It is generally supposed that the surgeon who is present at a military execution, is responsible for its consequences; this is not legally true, and it is physiologically impossible; the punishment is too uncertain in its operation to allow of any medical assistant's ascertaining the boundaries of danger; moral feeling, age, strength, nervous irritability, climate, previous disease, organic defects, and other circumstances, many of which it would be impossible for the most skilful to detect, and least of all by mere view of the culprit tied up to the halberts, may render a punishment fatal, which had been intended to be lenient. No surgeon therefore can answer, either for the ultimate, or immediate consequences of this species of corporal punishment; he may indeed err on the safe side, by interposing as early as possible, but there is no criterion by which he can be guided in forming an absolute opinion on the danger or safety of the punishment.
On the subject of the tread-mill, we are not enabled to pronounce any very decided opinion, the invention has not been in use long enough to determine with any degree of accuracy its merits or defects; that it is held in considerable dread by offenders is certain, and the fear of returning to it may operate favourably on that class for which it appears best calculated, the regular vagabond; but it does not give any habit of industry, or teach any mode of labour to the merely idle or casually culpable, and therefore ought not to be indiscriminately applied to all cases. The punishment too is one of the most unequal in its operation that can be conceived; a man, who has been accustomed to running up stairs all his life, with good lungs and muscular legs, will scarcely suffer by it; while an asthmatic tailor, weaver, or other sedentary artizan will be half killed by the exercise. For women in certain stages, whether of menstruation or pregnancy, it is a dangerous and indecent torture, one which should immediately be forbidden, if not by the humanity of magistrates, by the wisdom of the legislature.
FINIS.
POSTSCRIPT.
The impolitic duty on salt has been lowered to one-seventh of its former amount. An act has been passed to prevent nuisances by gas-water; and another for regulating the sale of Bread; to these we must refer our readers for the modification or correction of our former remarks on the several subjects connected with them.
INDEX OF CASES.
Aldred's case, 348
Archer's case, 50
Audley's case, 439
Beverly's case, 292
Blandy, Miss, case of, 157, 249
Blisset, Dickenson, &, 292
Bloomfield's case, 434
Boldero, Goodall, &, 382
Brazier's case, 422
Brown's case, 352
Butterfield's case, 303
Castlehaven's case, 439
Canning, Elizabeth, case of, 369
Cave's case, 434
Cory and Cory, 293
Cutt's case, 296
Dormer's case, 298
Douglas cause, 220
Duchess of Chandos' case, 295
Duffin's case, 435
Dwyer and Edie, 382
Fitzgerald's case, 295
Fleming and Windham's case, 439
Forbes' case, 420
Forse and Hembling's case, 294
Fothergill's case, 50
Foxcroft's case, 217
Greenwood's case, 302
Hall and Warren, 293--299
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