CRICKHOWELL, a market town of Brecknockshire, Wales, 14 m. E. of Brecon, beautifully situated on the left bank of the Usk, which divides it from Llangattock. Pop. (1901) 1150. The nearest railway stations are Govilon (5 m.) and Gilwern (4 m.) on the London & North-Western railway, but a mail and passenger motor service running between Abergavenny and Brecon passes through the town. It is also served by the Brecon & Newport Canal, which passes through Llangattock about a mile distant. Agriculture is almost the sole industry of the district. The town derives its name from a British fortress, Crûg Hywel, commonly called Table Mountain, about 2 m. N.N.E. of the town. Crickhowell Castle, of which only a tower remains, probably dated from the Norman conquest of the country. The manor of Crickhowell used to be regarded as a borough by prescription, but there is no record of its ever having possessed any municipal institutions. The church is in transitional Decorated style.
CRICKLADE, a market town in the Cricklade parliamentary
division of Wiltshire, England, 9 m. N.W. of Swindon, on the
Midland & South-Western Junction railway. Pop. (1901)
1517. It is pleasantly situated in the plain which borders the
south bank of the Thames, not far from the Thames & Severn
Canal. The cruciform church of St Sampson is mainly Perpendicular,
with a fine ornate tower, and an old rood-stone in
its churchyard. The small church of St Mary has an Early
English tower, Perpendicular aisles and a Norman chancel-arch.
There is some agricultural trade.
Legend makes Cricklade the abode of a school of Greek philosophers before the Roman conquest, and the name is given as “Greeklade” in Drayton’s Polyolbion. It owed its importance in Saxon times to its position at the passage of the Thames. During the revolt of Æthelwald the Ætheling in 905 he and his army “harried all the Mercian’s land until they came to Cricklade and there they went over the Thames” (Anglo-Sax. Chron. sub anno), and in 1016 Canute came with his army over the Thames into Mercia at Cricklade (ibid.). There was a mint at Cricklade in the time of Edward the Confessor and William I., and William of Dover fortified a castle here in the reign of Stephen. In the reign of Henry III. a hospital dedicated to St John the Baptist was founded at Cricklade, and placed under the government of a warden or prior. Cricklade was a borough by prescription at least as early as the Domesday Survey, and returned two members to parliament from 1295 until disfranchised by the Redistribution Act of 1885. The borough was never incorporated, but certain liberties, including exemption from toll and passage, were granted to the townsmen by Henry III. and confirmed by successive sovereigns. In 1257 Baldwin de Insula obtained a grant of a Thursday market, and an annual three days’ fair at the feast of St Peter ad Vincula. The market was subsequently changed to Saturday, and was much frequented by dealers in corn and cattle, but is now inconsiderable. During the 14th century Cricklade formed part of the dowry of the queens of England. In the reign of Henry VI. the lordship was acquired by the Hungerford family, and in 1427 Sir Walter Hungerford granted the reversion of the manor to the dean and chapter of Salisbury cathedral to aid towards the repair of their belfry.
CRIEFF, a police burgh of Perthshire, Scotland, capital of
Strathearn, 17¾ m. W. of Perth by the Caledonian railway.
Pop. (1901) 5208. Occupying the southern slopes of a hill on
the left bank of the Earn, here crossed by a bridge, it practically
consists of a main street, with narrower streets branching off
at right angles. Its climate is the healthiest in mid-Scotland,
the air being pure and dry. Its charter is said to date from 1218,
and it was the seat of the courts of the earls of Strathearn till
1747, when heritable jurisdictions were abolished. A Runic
sculptured stone, believed to be of the 8th century, and the old
town cross stand in High Street, but the great cattle fair, for
which Crieff was once famous, was removed to Falkirk in 1770.
It was probably in connexion with this market that the “kind
gallows of Crieff” acquired their notoriety, for they were mostly
used for the execution of Highland cattle-stealers. The principal
buildings are the town hall, tolbooth, public library, assembly
rooms, mechanics’ institute, Morison’s academy (founded in
1859), and Strathearn House, a hydropathic establishment
built on an eminence at the back of the town, and itself sheltered
by the Knock of Crieff (911 ft. high). The industries consist
of manufactures of cotton, linen, woollens and worsteds, and
leather. Drummond Castle, about 3 m. S., is celebrated for
its gardens. They cover an area of 10 acres, are laid out in
terraces, and illustrate Italian, Dutch and French styles. They
were planned by the 2nd earl of Perth (d. 1662), and take rank
with the most magnificent in the United Kingdom. The keep
of the castle dates from 1490, and much of the original building
was demolished in 1689, a few years after its siege by Cromwell.
The present structure was erected subsequent to the extinction
of the Jacobite rebellion.
CRIME (Lat. crimen, accusation), the general term for offences
against the Criminal Law (q.v.). Crime has been defined as
“a failure or refusal to live up to the standard of conduct
deemed binding by the rest of the community.” Sir James
Stephen describes it as “some act or omission in respect of
which legal punishment may be inflicted on the person who is
in default whether by acting or omitting to act.” Such action
or neglect of action may be injurious or hurtful to society. It
is a wrong or tort, to be prevented and corrected by the strong
arm of the law.
Crimes vary in character with times and countries. Under different circumstances of place and custom, that which at one time is denounced as a crime, at another passes as a meritorious act. It was once an imperative duty for the family to avenge the death of a kinsman, and the blood feud had a sanction that made killing no murder. Again, among primitive tribes to make away with parents at an advanced age or suffering from an incurable disease was a filial duty. Polyandry was sometimes encouraged, and cannibalism practised with general approval; religious sentiment elevated into heinous crimes, blasphemy, heresy, sacrilege, sorcery and even science when it ran counter to accepted dogmas of the church. Offences multiplied when people gathered into communities and the rights of property and of personal security were understood and established. The law of the strongest might still interfere with individual ownership; the weakest went to the wall; authority, whether exercised by one master or by the combined government of the many, was resisted, and this resistance constituted crime. As civilization spread and the bulk of the population settled into orderliness, society, for its own comfort, convenience and protection, would not tolerate the infraction of its rules, and rising against all law-breakers decreed reprisals against them as the common enemy. Then began that constant warfare between criminals and the forces of law and order which has been continuously waged through the centuries with varying degrees of bitterness.
The combat with crime was long waged with great cruelty. Extreme penalties were thought to constitute the best deterrent, and the principle of vengeance chiefly inspired the penal law. The harshness of ancient codes makes a more humane age shudder. It was the custom to hang or decapitate, or otherwise take life in some more or less barbarous fashion, on the smallest excuse. The final act was preceded by hideous torture. It was performed with the utmost barbarity. Victims were put to death by breaking on the wheel, burning at the stake, by dismemberment and flaying or boiling alive. These were the aggravations of the original idea of riddance, of checking crime by the absolute removal of the offender. Only slowly and gradually milder methods came into force. Revenge and retaliation were no longer the chief aims, the law had a larger mission than to coerce the criminal and force him by severity to mend his ways. To withdraw him for a lengthened period from the sphere of his baneful activity was something; to subject him to more or less irksome processes, to solitary confinement upon short diet, deprived of all the solaces of life, with severe labour, were sharp lessons limited in effect to those actually subjected to them, but too remote to deter the outside crowd of potential wrongdoers. The higher duty of the administrator
