poor against the numerous tricks thus practised upon them by low and inferior shop-keepers and itinerants.

The ancient system of regulating this useful branch of police by the juries of the court-leet having been found ineffectual, and in many respects inapplicable to the present state of society, an act passed the 35th of his present majesty, cap. 102, to remedy the inconvenience with regard to fraudulent weights; but difficulties having occurred on account of the expence of carrying it into execution, certain amendments were made by another act, 37 Geo. III, c. 143; and the magistrates in petty sessions have now power to appoint examiners of weights, and to authorize them to visit shops, seize false weights, &c.

This plan, if pursued as steadily as that which already prevails in regulating bakers, promises to produce very valuable benefits to the lower ranks of people at a very small expence, Ibid.

WITNESSES, CREDIBILITY OF.

To determine exactly the credibility of a witness and the force of evidence is an important point in every good legislation. Every man of common sense, that is, every one whose ideas have some connection with each other, and whose sensations are conformable to those of other men, may be a witness; but the credibility of his evidence will be in proportion as he is interested in declaring or concealing the truth. Hence it appears how frivolous is the reasoning of those who reject the testimony of women, on account of their weakness; how puerile it is not to admit the evidence of those

who

who are under sentence of death, because they are dead in law; and how irrational to exclude persons branded with infamy; for in all these cases they ought to be credited, when they have no interest in giving false testimony.

The credibility of a witness, then, should only diminish in proportion to the hatred, friendship, or connections, subsisting between him and the delinquent. One witness is not sufficient; for whilst the accused denies what the other affirms, truth remains suspended, and the right that every one has to be believed innocent turns the balance in his favour.

The credibility of a witness is the less as the atrociousness of the crime is greater, from the improbability of it's having been committed; as in cases of witchcraft and acts of wanton cruelty. The writers on penal laws have adopted a contrary principle: viz. that the credibility of a witness is greater as the crime is more atrocious. Behold their inhuman maxim, dictated by the most cruel imbecility :-" In atrocissimis, leviores conjecturæ sufficiunt, et licet judici jura transgredi." Let us translate this sentence, that mankind may see one of the many unreasonable principles to which they are ignorantly subject." In the most atrocious crimes, the slightest conjectures are sufficient, and the judge is allowed to exceed the limits of the law." The absurd practices of legislators are often the effect of timidity, which is a principal source of the contradictions of mankind. The legislators (or rather lawyers, whose opinions when alive were interested and venal, but which after their death become of decisive authority, and are the sovereign arbiters of the lives and fortunes of men), terrified by the condemnation of some innocent person, have burdened the law with pompous and useless forma

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lities,

lities, the scrupulous observance of which will place anarchical impunity on the throne of justice; at other times, perplexed by atrocious crimes of difficult proof, they imagined themselves under a necessity of superseding the very formalities established by themselves; and thus, at one time with despotic impatience, and at another with feminine timi dity, they transform their solemn judgments into a game of hazard.

But to return. In the case of witchcraft, it is much more probable that a number of men should be deceived than that any person should exercise a power which God hath refused to every created being. In like manner, in cases of wanton cruelty, the presumption is always against the accuser ; for no man is cruel without some interest, without some motive of fear or hate. There are no spontaneous or superfluous sentiments in the heart of man; they are all the result of impressions on the

senses.

The credibility of a witness may also be dimi nished by his being a member of a private society, whose customs and principles of conduct are either not known or are different from those of the public. Such a man has not only his own passions, but those of the society of which he is a member.

Finally, the credibility of a witness is null when the question relates to the words of a criminal; for the tone of voice, the gesture, all that precedes, accompanies, and follows, the different ideas which men annex to the same words may so alter and modify a man's discourse, that it is almost impossible to repeat them precisely in the manner in which they were spoken. Besides, violent and uncommon actions, such as real crimes, leave a trace in the multitude of circumstances that attend them, and

their effects; but words remain only in the memory of the hearers, who are commonly negligent or prejudiced. It is infinitely easier then to found an accusation on the words than on the actions of a man; for in these, the number of circumstances urged against the accused afford him variety of means of justification. Beccaria.

WHEEL.

The punishment of the wheel was first introduced in Germany in the times of anarchy, when those who usurped the regal power resolved to terrify, with unheard of torments, those who should dispute their authority. Voltaire. See TORTURE.

WHIPPING, AMONG THE ANTIENT JEWS.

This punishment was not to exceed forty stripes, and therefore the whip, with which it was to be inAlieted, being made of three thongs, and each blow giving three stripes, they never laid on any criminal more than thirteen blows; because thirteen of those blows made thirty nine stripes, and to add another blow would have been a transgression of the law, by adding two stripes over and above forty. Prideaux's Connections.

WOMEN, DISORDERLY, HOW PUNISHED IN

CHINA.

The punishment inflicted upon disorderly women in China is effected by placing small pieces of wood betwixt their fingers, and then drawing them very forcibly together with cords.

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There

There are no people existing who pay so sacred an attention to the laws of decency as the Chinese. Habituated in preserving the constant appearance of modesty and self-controul, nothing is more uncommon amongst them than deleterious examples of unblushing vice; and if there be truth in the old maxim, that want of decency, either in action or in word, betrays a deficiency of understanding, they certainly indicate more sense than some other nations, who affect to excel them in education and refinement. The general manners of people of every condition in China wear as modest a habit as their persons. They discover no gratification in wresting their proper language into impure meanings; and grossly offensive phrases are only to be heard amongst the very dregs of the community, and at the risk of immediate and severe judicial correction. Punishments of China.

WOOD, BLOCK OF, A PUNISHMENT IN CHINA.

For certain offences, the Chinese fasten a man to a large block of wood, by passing a strong ring of iron through one corner of it. From this ring, a weighty chain is continued round the neck of the man, and fastened, by a padlock, upon his breast. Ibid.

WOODEN CAGE, IN CHINA.

A malefactor is farther secured by a chain from his neck to his ankle, from whence another chain proceeds, round one of the corner posts of his wooden cage, the entrance to which is through two moveable bars: these bars are fastened by an iron bolt, that passes through some staples, and is pre