people cannot be happy without good laws;
that even good laws are of no use unless they be known and understood; and
that, therefore, the king has ordered the laws of England thus to be
written and recorded. This book is very well known to be of the greatest
authority, amongst lawyers, and in Chap. 10 of this book, in which the law
describes what constitutes a BURGLAR, or house-breaker, and the punishment
that he shall suffer (which is that of death,) there is this passage:
"Those are to be deemed burglars who feloniously, in time of peace, break
into churches or houses, or through walls or doors of our cities, or our
boroughs; with _exception_ of children under age, and of _poor people who
for hunger, enter to take any sort of victuals of less value than twelve
pence_; and except idiots and mad people, and others that cannot commit
felony." Thus, you see, this agrees with the MIRROUR OF JUSTICES, and with
all that we have read before from these numerous high authorities. But
this, taken in its full latitude, goes a great length indeed; for a
burglar is a _breaker-in by night_. So that this is not only _a taking_;
but a breaking into a house in order to take! And observe, it is taking to
the value of _twelve pence_; and twelve pence then was the price of _a
couple of sheep_, and of fine fat sheep too; nay, twelve pence was the
price of _an ox_, in this very reign of Edward the First. So that, a
hungry man might have a pretty good belly-full in those days without
running the risk of punishment. Observe, by-the-by, how time has hardened
the law. We are told of the _dark ages_, of the _barbarous customs_, of
our forefathers: and we have a SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH to receive and to
present petitions innumerable, from the most tender hearted creatures in
the world, about "_softening the criminal code_;" but, not a word do they
ever say about a softening of _this law_, which now hangs a man for
stealing the value of a RABBIT, and which formerly did not hang him till
he stole the value of an OX! Curious enough, but still more scandalous,
that we should have the impudence to talk of our _humanity_, and our
_civilization_, and of the barbarousness of our forefathers. But, if a
_part_ of the ancient law remain, shall not the _whole_ of it remain? If
we hang the thief, still hang the thief for stealing to the value of
_twelve pence_; though the twelve pence now represents a rabbit instead of
an ox; if we still do this, would BLACKSTONE