sense to the word "right." When courts of law were separated from courts of equity, the former courts entertained actions for vindicating rights, just as the latter entertained suits for enforcing equities. Thus a wife was said not to have a right to a settlement out of legacies bequeathed to her by third parties, because courts of law for some reason could not enforce it; but she had an equity, and courts of equity enforced it. So a man who was injured by a breach of contract or an assault had a right to recover damages, but he had not what was technically known as an equity, and hence he could bring an action in a court of law, but could not file a bill nor institute any suit in a court of equity. The explanation was, that for some reason or another the jurisdiction had become subdivided between these two courts, and each could administer only a partial remedy in many cases. 1875 the distinction between courts of equity and of law was abolished, and now all equity is merged in law—all suits and bills are included in actions-all equities are rights, and the Supreme Court of Judicature knows of one thing only as the foundation of actions and proceedings, and that is some right on the one hand, and some correlative duty or obligation on the other hand. But in Meaning of word "wrong."-Another word of common use in the law is "wrong," and here, as already observed, it is used in a sense altogether distinct from moral wrong, and from the vague notion attached in popular language to that word. A wrong, in the eye of the law, is a violation of a legal right, duty, or obligation. Blackstone divided wrongs into private and public-the former including all that gives rise to actions, and the latter including all that gives rise to indictments and equivalent proceedings. As already defined, an action is the enforcing of a claim or demand which one individual has against another, and which by agreement they can between them at any time extinguish without risk or interference or question from third parties. On the other hand, an indictment or prosecution is the enforcing of some punishment for the violation of a duty or obligation, and which cannot be compromised between the wrong-doer and the sufferer alone, but the right of punishment and redress is vested in some third party or public functionary. N Meaning of word "tort."-The word "tort" is to some extent synonymous with private wrong, but is used to denote those wrongs only, or violations of right which do not arise directly out of any contract. When duties and obligations arise out of contract, as the duty of a debtor to pay his debt, of a contractor to perform his contract, the violation of such duty is called a breach of contract. But when the duty has nothing whatever to do with any contract or pre-existing relation between the parties-as the duty not to injure another when passing along the street or highway-not to allow a dangerous dog to bite another person, the violation of such duty is called a tort. "Tort," is not, however, synonymous with accident, for many accidents occur which the law cannot remedy, and it is often difficult to distinguish between a tort, or legal injury, and a mere accident, though the damage actually accruing to the sufferer may be the same. It requires an examination of many minute details of human affairs to trace this distinction. And when an accident is nothing more than an accident, and is not a tort for which the law provides any remedy, it is sometimes called damnum sine injuriaa suffering to some one, but a suffering for which nobody is blameable or responsible, and consequently, which has no remedy provided by the law. 66 Meaning of word "crime."-The meaning of the word "crime" has been, to some extent, already alluded to, und er the head of “right, duty, and obligation." The technical sense of the word crime closely coincides with its popular sense. The word is seldom used as a term of legal art, except under one or other of its three denominationstreason, felony, and misdemeanour. It includes the most flagrant violations of right, duty, and obligation--flagrant as regards its motive and origin; and it is deemed not only hurtful to the individual sufferer, but to the rest of the public also. When A owes B a debt, and refuses to pay it, the violation of duty by A is deemed hurtful to B alone, or at least B may treat it as such, and discharge or waive it, abandoning his remedy, and if so, no harm is done, in the eye of the law, to the rest of the community. But when A stabs B, or steals B's property, though in one sense the violation of duty by A is hurtful to B alone, still, in the estimation of the law, the whole community is wounded through his side, and A is made to undergo some punishment, irrespective altogether of what B may think or feel in the matter, and A cannot purge this delinquency by compounding with B. The punishment inflicted on Å for a crime is sometimes a fine, or sum of money, but more frequently a term of imprisonment coupled with hard labour or whipping, and in a few cases the punishment is nothing less than death. It may therefore be stated broadly, that the differential characteristic of a crime is its depraved motive, and its being punished irrespective of the injury done to the chief sufferer, while a private or civil wrong is visited with no punishment at all per se, but merely with some compensation or equivalent to the individual injured, and to him alone. Quasi crimes punishable by justices. It is true that there are a few violations of right which are redressed in a summary way by justices of the peace, which fill an intermediate place between private, or civil wrongs, and crimes, or public wrongs, being sometimes punished without regard, and sometimes mainly with regard, to the person injured. Such cases on the border line are difficult to classify, but to one or other class they are usually referable, according to the purpose in view. Moreover, though a crime usually involves the violation of some right vested in an individual who is the sufferer, there are a few exceptional cases where the individual vanishes and nothing but an abstraction remains; but these cases admit, as will be seen hereafter, of no serious difficulties of classification. Meaning of "treason," "felony," "misdemeanour."--The words treason, felony, misdemeanour, denote the three classes of crimes, and require here only a passing notice, for they are substantially mere matters of procedure, and belong more properly to that division of the administrative law entituled the judicature. The only importance which belongs to these terms in the divisions of the substantive law arises from the subject-matter, or the particular right which each crime, through its punishment, is designed to secure. It is true, as a general observation, that treason includes the offences against the executive government: while felony and misdemeanour used to be mostly confined to the crimes between subject and subject. But neither class is in modern times so confined. Some of the higher felonies. Some used to be called petty treason, but are no longer so. of the offences against the sovereign have been taken out of the category of treason, and ranked in the lower grades of felony or misdemeanour. The dividing lines are no longer scrupulously observed in respect of the object and subject-matter protected against these crimes. It was also once possible to distinguish treason, felony, and misdemeanour, by the severity of the punishment, and of the incidents both before and after conviction. All ages seem to have agreed in treating treason as a crime of the deepest dye that is known to the law, and therefore to be more severely punished than any felony, because it was aimed at the life of the sovereign, which is the keystone of the arch and the centre of the social fabric. To unsettle this is to let loose the elements of mischief far and wide. Hence a traitor was tried by peculiar tests of guilt, and the pains were more cruel and prolonged. There were agonies before death, agonies during death, and cruelties after death. After death the traitor's lands and goods were forfeited, and his blood was attainted; in other words, the relatives, howover innocent, were deprived of their inheritance, not only of what would have descended to them immediately on his natural death, but what at later times might come to them from those related through the blood of the traitor as a link in the chain of title. From each and all of those superfluous cruelties, one by one, the law, with juster views of its proper province, has retreated. Felony originally meant judgment of life and member, and the two things were often used synonymously.1 Hence if a statute declared a crime felony, and assigned no punishment, a capital sentence was implied. In felony, confiscation was by escheat, while in treason it was by forfeiture. Felons were only a little less cruelly dealt with. conviction their lands and goods were also forfeited in capital cases, and most cases were capital. In misdemeanours neither forfeiture of lands nor goods nor attainder of blood followed conviction. 1 1 1 Inst. 391; 2 Inst. 434; 1 Hale, P. C. 703; 4 Bl. Com. 94. On |