[42]. In the year 1788, Blumenbach shewed that corpora lutea may exist in the ovaries of virgins (Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gotting. vol. ix.) Cuvier has also noticed the appearance of cicatrices in the ovaria of women who had never known any intercourse with the male.
[43]. Wilson on the Bones and Joints, p. 110.
[44]. It was the custom of the ancients to exhibit in the same sculpture in Bas relief, men of very different dimensions, of making kings and conquerors gigantic in stature, while their subjects and vassals were represented as only a fourth or fifth part of their size. This must have given origin to the fable of Giants and Pigmies; while a belief in such tales has been supported by the discovery of gigantic bones, which have through ignorance been received as human remains, but which, as Sir Hans Sloane in an interesting paper in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 404, p. 497,) very truly observes, are nothing more than the bones and teeth of Elephants or Whales: thus, says he, the fore fin of a whale, stripped of its web and skin, was not long since publicly shewn for the bones of a giant’s hand. The same explanation applies to those pretended skeletons of Giants of 12, 20, and 30 cubits high, as mentioned by Philostratus. The skeleton of 46 cubits which, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. Lib. vii. c. 16,) was found in the cavity of a mountain in Crete, upon its overthrow by an earthquake. The skeleton 60 cubits high which Strabo (Lib. 17) says was found near Tangis (Tangier) in Mauritania, and supposed to be that of Antæus. To which list maybe added the skeleton of Asterius, son of Anactes—10 cubits. That of Orestes, dug up by special command of the Oracle, 7 cubits, &c. &c.
[45]. In a lecture on “Mathematical Beauty,” delivered by Professor Camper in the Academy of Drawing at Amsterdam, this celebrated physiologist has shewn that in tracing the figures of the body of the male and female in two imaginary ellipses of equal dimensions, a portion of the pelvis of the latter would be out of the ellipse, and her shoulders within it; whereas in the former, the shoulders would project beyond the limits of the figure, and his pelvis, on the contrary, would be entirely enclosed within it.
[46]. Sir M. Hale (1 P. C. 433) says, it cannot be legally known whether it were killed or not; and adds, “so it is if after such child were born alive and baptized, and after dies of the stroke given to the mother, this is not homicide.” It is difficult to conceive why the term baptized was introduced in this dictum: for whether it were the child of Jew, Turk, or Anabaptist, it is equally entitled to the protection of the law.
[47]. The Roman Emperor, at a congress held at Constantinople in 692, ordained, that it should be punished with the same rigour as homicide; and severe statutes were enacted against it by Antonine, as early as the 161st year of the christian era.
[48]. Exodus, c. xxi. A case illustrative of this law occurred at Stafford in the year 1811; when a man was executed for the murder of his wife, whose death he occasioned by inducing abortion, through extreme violence, as by elbowing her in bed, rolling over her, &c.
[49]. By the Stat. 21 Jac. c. 27. If a woman delivered of issue, which being born alive would be a bastard, endeavour by burying, drowning, &c. by herself or others, so as to conceal its death, that it may not appear, whether born alive or not, it is murder, unless she prove by one witness at least, that it was born dead. Ba. Abr. tit. Bastard.
[50]. We are strongly inclined to believe the assertion, that where the severity of a statute is excessive, judges, juries, and prosecutors, enter into a league to defeat its rigor.
[51]. The law of Scotland was yet more severe; the mere fact of concealing the pregnancy, whether the death of the child were proved or not, was a capital felony. See 1 Hume’s Com. 287, and 1 Burnet’s Crim. Law, tit. Child-murder, and many cases there cited. The child of Margaret Dickson, to whose case we have alluded, vol. ii, p. 91, was legitimate.