practifed upon it, as it does in many other countries. It is of courfe excluded from interment in confecrated ground, and the warrant of the coroner only requires, "that the body fhall be buried in fome public highway." By virtue of this authority the body of the felf-murderer is caft with the burial of a dog into an hole dug in fome public highway, which fulfils the law in this point. But in fome places an additional (though not an enjoined) ignominy is practifed, which confists in driving a stake through the body, and also infcribing the name and crime on a board above—“ as a dreadful memorial to every paffenger, how "he splits on the rock of felf-murder." But the power of the legislature is also exercised over the " property," which the felf-murderer has left behind him. It is trufted that fome ufe may be made of fuch a disposal of his property, as may poffibly deter others from committing the like enormity. For whilft a man has any feelings of humanity for others left in his breast, he will be cautious of committing a crime, which may involve his most intimate connexions, his wife, his children, in poverty and ruin. It is judicious therefore on fome accounts (as well as justifiable on the fame principles as penal laws proceed to forfeiture of property in other cases) to hang this threatening over the head of one, who meditates fuicide, viz. that his innocent family must be wretched fufferers by his guilt; that the property, which they have been taught to expect at his death, and in confequence the mode of education and living they have hitherto fupported, must give way perhaps to fudden penury, without fault of their own; and thus they be not only deprived in the most shocking manner of their natural protector, but together with him and by his means, of all the comforts and enjoyments of life. In order, therefore to 1ouse fenfations of humanity in behalf of his family, and thus to strike a preventive terror of fuicide, as alfo to pay due attention to the injured rights of fociety and justice in the best manner it is able, the law [y] confifcates all the perfonal property of a felo de fe for the ufe of the crown. Thus the legifla [x] Nec vero me fugit, quàm fit acerbum parentis fcelera filiorum pœnis lui. Sed hoc præclare legibus comparatum eft, ut caritas liberorum amiciores parentes reipublicæ redderet. Itaque Lepidus crudelis in liberos, non is qui Lepidum hoftem judicat.Cic. ad Brutum, Ep. xii. It is not the law which in this cafe-acts unjustly by the family of a suicide (fince the law has respect to the good of the whole community and not to the partial interests of an individual) but the self-murderer himself, who is thus atrocious and cruel to his nearest connexions. ture exerts all the power it has over the self-murderer, by amercing him in his reputation" and in his late " poffeffions:" and though the offender himself feels the effects of neither, yet who will be bold enough to affirm, that if such penalties were but impartially and generally enforced, they might not have their "preventive" ufes in many cafes? and the prevention of crimes is the best aim of all human punishment. It is of no confequence to maintain, that notwithftanding the fevereft execution of thefe laws felf-murder would still prevail ;—so does every other crime, notwithstanding its punishment. But it does not thence follow, that all crimes would not increase and multiply upon us, were there no punishment" at all annexed to their commiffion. С НА Р. III. Two confiderations leading to evade the laws against fuicide; one concerning the object himself; the other his family.-The horror of the action induces to a belief, that there is a necessary madness accompanying all fuicide.—This opinion fully canvassed and its erroneous grounds laid open.-If all felf-murderers be "neceffarily" lunatics, no grounds for the use of the term felo de fe on any occafion.-Degrees in madnefs.-Lunacy a partial or temporary madness.—Suicide does not neceffarily imply either abfolute or partial madness.—The law adjudges lunatics to be capable of committing felonies in their lucid intervals; and that a lunatic who kills himself. in one of those intervals is a felo de fe.—It requires much precaution to judge truly in this cafe.-Truth and justice to be confidered as well as compassion.-Not every tranfient fit of melancholy can denominate a man non compos.—Much less can be be deemed fo, when no fuck melancholy has been greatly apparent.-Obj. "No "one can fay, when infanity begins."-Not probable to begin with that action, which is generally thought to indicate a complete debility.—Cool and deliberate felf-murder cannot imply a fudden lunacy. — Precipitate felf-murder no more implies a fudden lunacy than all other acts of outrageous violence for which men are condemned and punished. The bafty murderer of another is punished, but the bafty murderer of himself is deemed " of neceffity" a lunatic; which only tends abfurdly to prove, that the very aggravations of a crime are pleaded in bar of its punishment.-Madness is of two forts, natural or voluntary.-The former excludes from all legal guilt, the latter not; witness in intoxication or in violent rage producing murder. -The general proposition therefore—" fuicide neceffarily implies madness”—not true.—A “moral” madness to be allowed in all fuicide; but this totally different from a "natural" madness.-The coroner's jury have nothing to do with the effects of moral madness; their inquiry to be confined to thofe of natural madness.-The question, "when is there infanity fufficient to excufe fuicide?" confidered.-Judge Hale's rule with respect to melancholic fuicide noticed; another propofed. A general rule mentioned, which comprehends all forts of fuicide; viz. when infanity can be proved fufficient to have excufed the murder of another.— Objection to fo great a degree of lunacy being required, anfwered.-Humane confiderations for the family of the fuicide are a fecond caufe inclining to fet afide the laws.—The juft object of punishment is fled, and innocent perfons alone remain to fuffer in their property.—Lenient verdicts not founded in truth tend to countenance fuicide.—Innocent individuals must sometimes fuffer with the guilty for the benefit of the whole community.-The general evasion of the laws against fuicide Shows that they contain fome untenable claufe, and this is," the confifcation of property.". Confiderations on the expediency of annulling this clause, and increafing the indignities to be exercised on the body.-After this the legislature will have done all in its power to create an abhorrence of the crime.-Human laws however will be of little avail in this cafe, where divine ones are previously defpifed, and all dread of futurity is wanting. IT T cannot escape any one's obfervation, that though fuch frequent application is neceffarily made to the laws of fuicide, yet their penalties are feldom or ever enforced. Now the evafion arifes [z] from two confiderations, one of which regards the object himself, the other his family. They are both grounded on [z] The author of the "Connoiffeur" points his humourous fatire against all interefted evafions of thefe laws in the following terms. "From reading the public prints a foreigner might naturally "be led to imagine, that we are the moft lunatic people in the whole world. Almost every day in"forms us, that the coroner's inqueft has fate on the body of fome miferable fuicide and brought in "their verdict lunacy. But it is very well known, that the inquiry has not been made into the frate "of mind of the deceased, but into his fortune and family. The law has indeed provided, that the "deliberate felf-murderer fhould be treated like a brute and denied the rites of burial. But of hunTt2 "dreds on principles of humanity, and therefore must not be precipitately cenfured; but it does not thence follow, that they must alfo be implicitly approved; fince however amiable it be to blend mercy with judgment, yet the example is dangerous, which exalts compaffion above truth and juftice. The first humaneconfideration is exercised towards the wretched object himself, the fate of whose breathless body (and in confequence of his future good or evil memorial) is to be determined by a judicial verdict. When a coroner's jury is fummoned, it is not to be supposed, but that the individuals compofing it may have a just abhorrence of the crime of self-murder, and be defirous of reprobating its finful commiffion. But it is also fact, that the very horror of the crime often tends to bias their judgments, by inducing them to conclude, that fo unnatural a deed must of neceffity proceed from a distracted or lunatic ftate of mind; and that even if no fymptoms of that kind have previously appeared, yet that the very action itself is a fufficient proof of a failure in the understanding at the moment of commiffion. Under fuch a persuasion no other verdict can possibly be given, but that of "lunacy;" which excluding all offence effectually screens from all reproach. But is there not a greater share of humanity than of truth in the supposition, that the mere act of fuicide "neceffarily" implies lunacy? Is there no distinction to be made between a violent but voluntary perverfion [A] of reason, and its involuntary lofs? If fuicide" neceffarily" implies, that the perfon committing it was infane, where is the use of any further inquiry than to ascertain the means by "dreds of lunatics by purchase, I never knew this fentence executed but on one poor cobler, who hanged himself in his own ftall. A penniless poor dog, who has not left enough to defray the funeral "charges, may perhaps be excluded the church-yard; but felf-murder by a piftol genteelly mounted, or the Paris-hilted sword, qualifies the polite owner for a fudden death, and entitles him to a pom"pous burial and a monument fetting forth his virtues in Weftminster-Abbey." Without comment on the above, the present writer in a work of this nature only wishes to elucidate thofe general caufes, which make the community at large fo indulgent to every favourable interpretation of the laws against suicide. [A] "The excuse of not being in his fenfes ought not to be ftrained to that length, to which our coroner's juries are apt to carry it; viz. that the very act of fuicide is an evidence of infanity; as if every man, who acted contrary to reafon, had no reafon at all: for the fame argument would prove every other criminal non compos, as well as the felf-murderer.”. -BLACKSTONE'S Com. Vol. IV. B. IV. C. xiv. I which which a man came by his death? For it being once proved to have been by his own hands, all confequent investigation for the purpofe of finding a verdict is needlefs; he was of course infane; and the legal distinctions between a lunatic and a felo de fe have been at all times nugatory and ill-grounded. There never can have been an inftance of a felo de fe properly fo called in the interpretation of law and the customs of all nations concerning felf-murderers, as well as the particular constitutions by which the fuppofed crime has been ftigmatifed, have been grounded in error and executed in injustice. But as this idea of a neceffary lunacy in fuicide is prevalent, and obtains more especially among thofe, who are deemed compaffionate, because they follow the first impreffions of their fenfibility rather than the principles of found reason, it will be worth while to investigate, whether fuch an opinion be not founded in grofs error and productive of much evil confequence? fince whatever tends to leffen the imputation and guilt of a real crime in our opinions, tends equally to encourage and promote its commiffion. It is maintained that "to kill onefelf is so strange and unnatural an action, that none but a madman [B] could commit it:" or to give the argument its full force at once-" fuicide implies "madness-madness excludes guilt-therefore there is no guilt or crime in "fuicide." As the conclufion drawn from thefe premifes is logical and important, it behoves us thoroughly to examine into their pretenfions to truth: or in other words to inquire, whether fuicide neceffarily implies madness ? and whether madness neceffarily excludes all guilt? For if a failure can be proved in the general truth of either of thefe propofitions, the general confequence falls to the ground; or if they are only true in part, the truth of the confequence is partial also. An explanation of terms is neceffary previous to all reasoning about them; but the only ambiguous one here is "madnefs." Now by madness is in general meant, fuch an alienation or diftraction of mind, as renders a man not But madness only deftitute of the "ufe," but of the "powers" of reafon. may be either total or partial, permanent or temporary; that is, a perfon fo [B] Quem mala ftultitia & quæcunque infcitia veri HOR. affected |