CURIOUS LAWS OF FINES AND COMPENSATION FOR CRIMES BY JOSEPH M. SULLIVAN. THE system of fines or compensation for crimes is of very ancient origin. Fines were in common use in Hebrew jurisprudence as we can readily observe from a perusal of Holy Writ, and penalties were imposed for crimes in Ireland for ages before the Chris tian era. A study of the ancient laws of computa tion for crimes is extremely interesting. "King Edmund, in order to check private feuds and combats which disgraced his reign, established various compensations for loss of life, making no discrimination be tween manslaughter and murder. A king's life was computed to be worth about £1,300, or about six thousand dollars. The value of a prince was about half this sum. A bishop or an alderman was worth about half as much as a prince. A sheriff was valued at about eight hundred dollars; a common clergyman at four hundred dollars. A com mon husband or tiller of the soil was worth about fifty dollars. The life of an arch bishop was more valuable than that of a king. A king was worth about 112 com mon men, and this system of fines gave to the rich an unlimited right to kill and mur der. "A scale of prices for wounds and injuries was formerly in operation. Thus we find in the early Saxon annals that a wound an inch in length under the hair, was settled by the payment of one shilling; a wound of a like size in the face, two shillings; the loss of an ear was rated as equivalent to thirty shillings. These estimates applied to all classes. The code of Ethelbert provided that any man who committed adultery with another man's wife should be compelled to buy him a new one. "Another curious feature of these laws
was the estimate placed on witnesses. A person whose life was valued at one hundred and twenty shillings counterbalanced six common men, being reckoned at twenty shil lings each; and his oath was equivalent to all the six." These laws are said to be descended from the ancient Germans, among whom we find that if a man was called a pare, or wrong fully reproached with having lost his shield in battle, he was allowed to exact a heavy fine from his libeller. These fines and equivalents were called a frcdum. Montes quieu says: By the law of. the Prisons, half a sol was granted as the compensation for a man who had been beaten with a stick. By the Salic law, an ingenu who gave three blows of a stick, paid a fine of as many sols; and if the blood were drawn, he was pun ished as though the injury had been inflicted with an iron weapon, and had to pay fifteen sols. The law of the Lombards established various compensations for one, two, three or four blows, and ordered that if a man, ac companied by his followers, were to assault another who was not upon his guard to bring shame and ridicule upon him, he should pay half of the compensation which he would have been obliged to give in the event of his having killed him. The study of the above quaint and curious laws offers a fertile field of research to the legal antiquary. Today, on the threshold of the twentieth century these laws are re garded only as curious relics of the drear and musty past, but to the industrious stu dent they lay bare the origin of our AngloSaxon jurisprudence, and present to his inquisitive mind the peculiar ingredients and historical origin of early English criminal procedure.
