In the case of bodily injuries the magnitude of the offence is, other things being equal, proportionate to the harm inflicted. At the lower stages of civilisation we meet with the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, or the offender has to pay an adequate compensation for the injury.[2] It is said in the Laws of Manu that, if a blow is struck against men in order to give them pain, the judge shall inflict a fine in proportion to the amount of pain caused.[3] According to Muhammedan law, retaliation for intentional wounds and mutilations is allowed, but a fine may be accepted instead. The fine for depriving a man of any of his five senses, or dangerously wounding him, or grievously disfiguring him for life, or cutting off a member that is single, as the nose, is the whole price of blood; the fine for a member of which there are two and not more, as a hand or a foot, is half the price of blood; the fine for a member of which there are ten, as a finger or a toe, is a tenth of the price of blood.[4] The scale of fines for bodily injuries contained in many of the early Teutonic law-books is minute to a degree.[5] According to various texts of the Salic law, 100 solidi—that is, a moiety of the wergeld—must be paid for depriving a man of a hand, foot, eye, or the nose; the thumb and great toe were valued at 50 solidi; the second finger with which the bow was drawn, at 35.[6] With respect to other acts of violence, the fine varied according to several circumstances, as, whether the blow was given with a stick or with closed fist, whether the brain was laid bare, whether certain bones were obtruded and how much, whether blood flowed from the wound on the ground, and so forth.[7] In the Anglo-Saxon codes almost every part and particle of the body, every tooth, toe, and nail, had its price. According to the Laws of Aethelbirht, for instance, twenty shillings were paid for striking off a thumb, three for a thumb nail, eight for the forefinger, eleven for the little finger.[8] In early Celtic law different amounts of injury were taxed with a similar affected precision.[9] Nothing can better give us an idea of the business-like manner in which the whole subject was treated than the Irish law against castration. If the injured persons be people to whom the organs extirpated are of no use, “such as a decrepit old man or a man in orders, there is nothing due to them for the loss of them, but body-fine according to the severity of the wound.”[10] After this one is almost surprised to read in the ancient laws of Ireland that, when a person had once been maimed, and received part or all of his body-fine, no subsequent wrong-doer could insist that the injured person should be rated as a damaged article.[11]
[2] Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, ii. 61 sqq. Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, pp. 208 (Takue), 502 (Barea and Kunáma). Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 105 (Mpongwe). Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs, p. 61 sq. Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 82 (Kandhs). Earl, Papuans, p. 83 (Papuans of Dory). Kubary, Die socialen Einrichtungen der Pelauer, p. 74 (Pelew Islanders). Petroff, ‘Report on Alaska,’ in Tenth Census of the United States, p. 105 (Thlinkets).
[3] Laws of Manu, viii. 286.
[4] Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 120. Sachau, Muhammedanisches Recht, p. 764.
[5] Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 729. Stemann, Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.’s Lov, p. 658. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, i. 56. Lappenberg, History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, ii. 422.
[6] Lex Salica, edited by Hessels, coll. 163-167, 170, 172-177, 179.
[7] Ibid. col. 100 sqq.
[8] Laws of Æthelbirht, 54.
[9] Ancient Laws of Ireland, iii. pp. cix., 349. Venedotian Code, iii. 23 (Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, p. 151 sqq.). Dimetian Code, ii. 17 (ibid. p. 246 sqq.). Gwentian Code, ii. 6 sq. (ibid. p. 340 sq.).
[10] Ancient Laws of Ireland, iii. 355.