Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-10-14
CRIMINAL BEASTS.
A CURIOUS STUDY OF MANS DEAL
lNGS WITH THE BRUTES.

lNGS WITH THE BRUTES.
Time Used to BE When Magistrates Sol
emnly Heard Arguments Over the Guilt
or Innocence of a Bird or a Lizard or
| an Insect-An Interesting Book.
| A book which will delight all lovers of the
curious and grotesque, as well as provide
| food for serious thought has appeared at
| Naples under the title of Criminal Beasts"
It's author. Signor d'Addosio, describes it
as mere attempt to deal with the subject.
He prepared it without assistance, and adj
mits that it only imperfectly covers the
ground he has outlined. Yet it presents
perfectly astounding array of facts and
veracious Incidents relating to the sup
posed amenability of brutcs to the civil law.
The reader is first reminded that the
ancient laws of the Egyptians, Indians,
Persians, Hebrews and Greeks attributed
rights and duties to animals, and decided
that equally with men animals were sub
ject to praise OF blame, reward or punish
ment. For this reason severe penalties
were instituted against men who took the
life Of animals, maltreated or hurt them
without reason, and equally severe penal
ties We're awarded to animals for acts hurt
ful to the lives or property of men. Little
by little these laws, which fourished
when mankind was still childlike and in
genuous, fell into disuse as the human
race became aware of it's immense supe-
riority, and finally the cold and reasoning
Romans denied to animals any rights and
duties, and pronounced them to be void
of conscience or personality without,
however, deciding that they were mere
machines.
Then came a reaction. The Middle
Ages, distinguished for the predominance
OF imagination over reason leaped back at
a bound to superstition and barbarism,
and all rights and duties were restored to
animals, together with such responsibility
that when they committed any act hurtful
to man or his works they were summoned
as criminals and subjected to the rigor of
the law. In the Sixteenth century this
humanizing of animals began again to de-
crease, until in the Seventeenth century it
entirely disappeared
After this historical sketch. Signor
d'Addosio considers the advance of science
in relation to the animal kingdom. The
theory of evolution, which ascribes to
brutes the rudiments of human attributes,
is carefully reviewed The modern school
OF science, says the author, declares that,
IN common with mankind, animals possess
reason WILL conscience, language, senti-
ments and sociability, and that the whole
difference lies in the more or less in guam
tity and not in quality. The modern penal
school now begins to ask: "What is
crime?" and itself replies that crime is a
natural phenomenon, common to plants
and animals equally with men, Now,
c1yv1u 0hc !, i i
theory be carried out to its logical conse-
quence, it would result that an animal
which sinned against human society ought
to be punished for it's crime, as it was in
the Middle Ages.
The curious lawsuits which were in the
Middle Ages so often instituted against
members of the animal kingdom were
sometimes penal, sometimes civil. The
former were directed against animals that
had destroyed human life, or resorted to
magic and diabolical works, when the ac-
cused were put in prison, tried, sentenced,
condemned and executed according to all
the formalities of lawsuits against human
criminals. The civil suits were directed
against such animals or insects as attacked
and damaged corn fields, vineyards, or
chards, meadows and so on, or in any other
way were hurtful to the possessions of
men.
When prayers and professions had been
resorted to in vain an appeal was made to
the local ecclesiastical judge, who cited the
destroyers to appear before him and nomi-
mated advocates for and against The in
habitants of the damaged district did the
same, and the trial took place with solem-
nifty and with all the tedious details and
long winded arguments Of medieval JUS
a,,1 c<c
condemned the accused insects or animals
to leave the invaded territory within a
given date, on pain of curses and excom-
and almost always assigned
some uncultivated place where they could
retire and live as they pleased. Often when.
the creatures had been deaf to the sentence