shall be committed by a subject of her Majesty, on land out of the United Kingdom, whether within the Queen's dominions or without, and whether the person killed be a subject of her Majesty or not, such offence may be dealt with, tried, and punished in any place in England or Ireland in which such person shall be in custody, in the same manner in all respects as if such offence had been actually committed in that place (m).

With regard to the punishment of murder by the death of the criminal, the words of the Mosaical law,-over and above the general precept to Noah, that "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,"-are very emphatical in prohibiting the pardon of a murderer. "Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a "murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be "put to death; for the land cannot be cleansed of the "blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that "shed it" (n). And yet in our country this crime, enormous as it is, was in antient times allowed the benefit of clergy (o); which was a commutation of capital punishment, once allowed to persons in holy orders, or, what was equivalent, to persons who were able to read, — and originally allowed to these only; though it was afterwards extended both to clergy and laity, whether able to read or not, and was then confined, on the other hand, to felonies of lighter kind, though, by the law of the time, capital offences. But benefit of clergy was wholly abolished by 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 28; after having been, by several earlier statutes, long before taken away from murderers through malice prepense, their abettors, procurers, and counsellors (p); and by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 1, it is now expressly enacted, that every person convicted of murder shall suffer death as a felon (q). In atrocious

(m) See also 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100,

s. 10.

(*) Gen. ix. 6; Numb. xxxv. 31, 32.

(0) 4 Bl. Com. 201.

(p) See 23 Hen. 8, c. 1; 1 Edw. 6, c. 12; 4 & 5 Ph. & M. c. 4. (a) This had previously been

cases, it was, at one time, usual for the court to direct the murderer, after execution, to be hung upon a gibbet in chains near the place where the crime was committed (→). And the legality of a direction that the body should be hung in chains was declared by 25 Geo. II. c. 37, and 9 Geo. IV. c. 31. [This practice of hanging in chains, which was quite contrary to the express command of the Mosaical law, seems to have been borrowed from the civil law (s); which, besides the terror of the example, gives also another reason, viz., that it is a comfortable sight to the relations and friends of the deceased (t).] By 25 Geo. II. c. 37, moreover, dissection was required to be, and by 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, might be,-a part of the sentence; and by the same statutes the judge was, in passing sentence, to direct the offender to be executed on the day next but one after that on which it was passed,unless that day should happen to be Sunday, and then on the Monday following. But these severities were successively laid aside (u); and it has now been provided by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 2, that sentence of death, on every conviction for murder, shall be pronounced and carried into execution, in the same manner as for other crimes which were capital before that Act. At the time of this statute, that is to say, in the year 1861, all executions took place in public; but a few years afterwards a widespread and growing belief that no benefit to the public at large arises from the sight of the death of a criminal, induced the legislature to abolish altogether executions for murder without the prison walls. And it was accordingly enacted by the statute 31 & 32 Vict. c. 24 (the Capital Punishment Amendment Act, 1868), that the judgment

provided in similar terms by 9 Geo. 4, c. 31, s. 3, repealed by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 95.

(r) 4 Bl. Com. 202.

(s) "The body of a malefactor "shall not remain all night upon "the tree: but thou shalt in any

"wise bury him that day, that "the land be not defiled."-Deut. xxi. 23.

(t) Ff. 48, 19, 28, s. 15.

(u) See 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 75, s. 16; and 4 & 5 Will. 4, c. 26.

of death to be executed on any prisoner for murder shall be carried into effect within the walls of the prison in which he shall be confined at the time of execution, in the presence of the sheriff, gaoler, chaplain, surgeons and such other officers of the prison as the sheriff requires; and of such magistrates of the jurisdiction to which such prison belongs as shall choose to be present; and of such relatives of the prisoner, or other persons as the sheriff or visiting justices shall think proper to admit; and that the body of the offender shall, as the general rule, and subject to the discretion of a secretary of state, be buried within the prison precincts (v).

[By the Roman law parricide, or the murder of one's parents or children, was punished in a much severer manner than any other kind of homicide. After being scourged, the delinquents were sewed up in a leathern sack, with a live dog, a cock, a viper and an ape, and so cast into the sea (x). Solon, however, in his laws made none against parricide; apprehending it impossible that any one should be guilty of so unnatural a barbarity (y). And the Persians, (according to Herodotus,) entertained the same notion, when they adjudged all persons who killed their reputed parents to be bastards (2).] And in like manner our English laws have made no particular provision with regard to this crime, so as to distinguish it in any respect from that of simple murder (a). Yet formerly, where a servant killed his master, a wife her husband,or an ecclesiastical person, (either secular or regular,) his superior to whom he owed faith and obedience (b),—this

(e) The Act contains provisions for ascertaining by the certificate of the prison surgeon and the verdict of a coroner's jury on the body of the offender, that the judgment of death has been executed. (See 31 & 32 Vict. c. 24, ss. 4, 5.) (x) Ff. 41, 9, 9.

(y) Cic. pro S. Roscio, s. 25. (2) Clio, c. 137.

(a) Blackstone (vol. iv. p. 202) seems inclined to attribute the want of any distinction with regard to parricide in our law, to the same assumption on the part of its founders as is referred to in the text, viz., that of the impossibility of the crime.

(b) "A clergyman," (says Blackstone, vol. iv. p. 203,) "is under

was accounted a species of treason, called parva proditio or petit treason (c). And hence it followed that in the particular case, also, where a parricide was committed by one who happened to stand in the relation of servant to his parent, he was adjudged guilty of petit treason, though the crime was so ranked under no other circumstances (d). For all these cases involved, in contemplation of law, not only murder, but murder aggravated by a species of treason; on account of the violation of private allegiance (e). And thus, too, in the antient Gothic constitutions, we find the breach both of natural and civil relations, ranked in the same class with crimes against the state and the sovereign (f). Nor was the distinction merely nominal,—the punishment in petit treason, being more severe than in the case of simple murder: for if the offender was a man, the sentence was to be drawn to the place of execution, and then hanged; and, if a woman, to be so drawn and then burned to death (g). But the crime itself of petit treason, as distinct from an ordinary murder, is now abolished; it being provided by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 8, that any killing which amounted to that offence before 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, shall now be deemed to be murder only, and no greater offence.

"stood to owe canonical obedience "to the bishop who ordained him "to him in whose diocese he is "beneficed-and also to the me

tropolitan of such bishop,-and "therefore to kill any of these is "petit treason," and he cites 1 Hale, P. C. 381.

(c) As to petit treason, see 25 Edw. 3, st. 5, c. 2; 1 Hale, P. C. 380. (d) Hale, ubi sup.; Bl. Com. vol. iv. p. 202.

(e) Foster, 107, 324, 336.

(f) "Omnium gravissima censetur vis facta incolis in patriam, subditis in regem, liberis in parentes, maritis in uxores (et vice versa), servis in

dominos, aut etiam ab homine in semet-ipsum."-Stiernh. de Jure Goth. 1. 2, c. 3.

(g) 1 Hale, P. C. 382; 3 Inst. 211. Blackstone (ubi sup.) remarks that this punishment of burning to death, in the case of the woman, seems to have been handed down to us by the laws of the antient Druids; which condemned a woman (see Cæs. de Bell. Gall. 1. 6, c. 19) to be burned for murdering her husband. It was, however, at one period, the usual punishment for all treasons committed by those of the female

sex.

II. Attempt to murder.-Not only the crime of actual murder, but that of endeavouring to commit it, amounted till recently, in some cases, to a capital felony (h). This crime, however, is no longer punishable with death under any circumstances,-and it is now provided by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 11, that whoever with intent to commit murder (i) shall administer, or cause to be administered, to any person, poison or other destructive thing (k); or who shall by any means whatever wound any person or cause him grievous bodily harm,-shall be guilty of felony, and on conviction may be sentenced to penal servitude for life, or for not less than five years; or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement (7). And by sect. 14 of the same Act, that whoever shall attempt to administer to any person, poison or other destructive thing; or who shall shoot at any person (m); or who shall by drawing a trigger or in any other manner attempt to discharge any kind of loaded arms at any person; or who shall attempt to drown, suffocate or strangle any person,-with intent, in any of the cases aforesaid, to commit murder, shall (whether any bodily injury be in fact effected or not) be guilty of felony, and liable to the same punishments as above mentioned. Again, by sect. 13, whoever shall set fire to, cast away, or destroy, any ship or vessel,-and by the 12th section, whoever by the explosion of gunpowder, or other explosive substance, shall destroy or damage any building,-with intent to commit murder, shall be liable to be similarly punished. Moreover, the same Act contains (sect. 15) a general provision making it felony (and awarding the same punishments as already mentioned) for any person to

(h) Under 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. 85 (repealed by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 95), an attempt to commit murder by poisoning, wounding, &c., was punishable with death.

(i) See R. v. Cruise, 8 Car. & P. 541.

() As to what constitutes an administration of poison, see R. v. Michael, 9 Car. & P. 356.

(7) See 27 & 28 Vict. c. 47. (m) See Reg. v. Smith, 25 L. J. (M. C.) 29.