FOLK

COLK across the river in the town of Woolwich spoke lightly of their neighbors at Wade's Ferry when discussing topics which held a point of law, the reason being that the town of Wade's Ferry had been compelled by virtue of an old lawsuit to maintain a suitable ferry for transportation of all cattle, merchandise and human. beings from said town of Wade's Ferry to Woolwich and vice versa. This obligation had been so irksome to the Ferry folk on account of the attitude of the citizens of Woolwich that the service had been sadly crippled, and each day added some fresh reason why the affairs should be straight

ened out satisfactorily to citizens of both towns. Although the town of Woolwich had the law with it, Wade's Ferry had the means of getting back and forth across a half-mile of sometimes roughish Kennebec River water. Needless to say that folk in Wade's Ferry had several times endeavored to have this decision set aside on account of the privilege not being appreciated, but without result. Thus things were when one hot day in August Uncle Asa Simpson drove down to the landing on the Woolwich side of the river and signalled for the ferry to take him across. This was done by hauling a white flag with a red centre aloft on a long pole.

Uncle Asa was the man who twice a week collected the cream for the creamery at Litchfield. This had to be ferried across the river and put on the cars at Wade's Ferry. The cream had been well iced, but the heat of the day had melted the ice, and Uncle Asa was anxious lest the cream should spoil. So after putting up the signal he spread a thick canvas over the cans to protect them from the sun's rays, climbed the lookout and waited. Lem Briry, who was detailed to act as ferryman, showed no sign of putting off. In fact this conversation was being held over in Wade's between Lem Briry and Nate Small, who had come down in the hopes that he might hook a "barss." "Who's washin' terday, Lem? Ain't hed much time ter dry yit, hez it?" "I 'low et ain't," says Lem; "don't seem ez ef them folks ever hez much washin'; they don't hang out more'n one piece et a time." After more than an hour had been spent in this manner, Lem spoke with, "Guess I'll go over 'n' help 'em tek it in ennyhow" meanwhile making preparations to hoisting the big sail and casting off, while Nate got out the big oar by which the craft was managed. There was no breeze and the motive power was furnished mainly by Lem and Nate by sculling with the long oar. However, they made the landing and were greeted by these words from Uncle Asa, backed up by Jed Peters and old Ma'am Hopkins, who had joined him shortly after his arrival at the landing. "I tell you whut, Lem Briry, ez fust selectman uv ther town uv Woolwich I'm a-goin' ter hev this thing looked into. I've been settin' here on this waggin nigh onto two hours arter I histed thet flag, with ten five gallon cans uv cream a-spilin' and whut ain't now fit fer nothin' but hogs." These remarks were supported by Jed Peters and Ma'am Hopkins, in much the same vein, but no reply was vouchsafed

from either Lem or Nate as the party made ready to cross to Wade's Ferry. About a week after this occurrence suit was brought against the town of Wade's Ferry for damages; and an injunction also was asked restraining said town from operating said ferry by help furnished by citizens of said town. Law cases were uncommon in these parts, but whatever came up were ably handled by Trial Justice Kent, who presided in this instance. Court was held at Litchfield Plains, about a mile further up the Kennebec and where his Honor resided. The eventful day arrived late in August and the town meeting-house was crowded with citizens of the neighborhood eager to give testimony, discuss the case, or swap a "likely lookin' critter." The judge mounted to the bench, adjusted his steel rimmed glasses, and after expectorating an enormous quantity of tobacco juice slowly delivered himself of the following. "You fellows frum Wade's Ferry and Woolwich hev been knawing on this ferry bone fer quite a spell. There hain't no need uv callin' any witnesses 'cause ther court air already 'quainted with the facts. Bein' ez how one side 'lows et hez a privilege 'thout bein' able to exercise it, while t'other side contends they hadn't oughter hev any privilege. I've allus held thet folks et Wade's Ferry wuz like putty much in the same fix ez Sinbad the sailor and ef they hev carried the folks at Woolwich back an' forth doin' all ther work, payin' ther bills, an' abidin' by a decision which 'pears ter me warn't accordin' ter the statoots an' never did hold water anyhow, then I 'lows thet Wade's Ferry folks hez been the parties injured. Moreover, I shud 'vise folks et Woolwich ter build theirselves a ferry an' do their own ferryin'."

This was taken as final and so ended the case of Woolwich v. Wade's Ferry.

N glancing over the history of various naextions, it will be readily seen that the extension given to the word parricide varies, and that usually it includes crimes that one would be astonished to find.united under this rubric, if the etymology, which evidently signifies the murder of a father or a mother, should be accepted literally. Thus, for example, at Rome all kinds of murders were included under the word "parricidium," but it is, nevertheless, true, as we shall show, that the law had special applications for the chastizement of those who killed their father or their mother. At a later date, the word parricide became more precise in its meaning, and was confined to the murderer of members of his family and a curious enumeration of crimes qualified as parricide will be found in a work entitled Praxis Rerum Criminalium, by Damhouder, who lived in the 16th Century. This authority says that "Jurisprudence terms a parricide the murder perpetrated on relatives such as a father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, wife, daughter-inlaw, son-in-law, father-in-law, mother-inlaw, etc. and all those who by a direct connection or by marriage may be assimilated to the preceding ones."

At the present time, the word parricide has become still more limited in meaning, and may be defined for all practical purposes as the murder of legitimate, natural or adopted fathers or mothers or of any other legitimate ascendant. The parricide is, consequently, the murder of legitimate direct ascendants, no matter what may be their degree, or persons holding a similar relationship, such as natural or adopted parents.

In antiquity several races were accus

tomed to kill their old, and this occurs at the present time among the savage tribes; but among all these people it is from love that the son kills his father, and it is filial piety that causes him to put an end to suffering in order to send his parent to join the shades of his ancestors in a better world. Among these people the parricide is usually a precept of religion, and among certain races, both ancient and modern, it is just this sentiment of filial piety that causes children to eat the flesh of their parents, as Herodotus told us of the Massagetæ, and as Letourreau has more recently shown of the Battas of Sumatra, who piously eat the bodies of their parents after having killed them. All these acts of savage tribes of the present time, which at first sight may appear revolting, simply indicate with what great respect they hold their ascendants.

If now we turn to the civilized nations, it will be immediately seen that filial love is no less deep, but that on account of civilization it shows itself quite differently in the form of an instinctive and universal horror of the parricide. In Greece, for example, this horror is expressed in the popular legends.

The pater familias was the direct and authorized descendant of the protecting gods of the family, and he was the pontiff of this religion, and for that very reason one can understand the respect that all members of the family had for him. Then again, when it is called to mind how great was the fear of the gods among the ancients, the exceptional rarity of the parricide can be easily imagined. This is so true that at a later date, when this antique cult of the ancestors disappeared, parricides began to increase in numbers.

The respect for the creators was so intense

that it would appear that the parricide was unknown in the early days of civilized society, and we will show further on that the Hebrew law, like the Grecian and Roman laws, did not take this crime into consideration, esteeming that it was an impossibility. At Athens, the first mention of a law for the punishment of a parricide only appears at the time of Solon. At Rome, this crime was unknown for a long time, if we may believe the most,authentic historians. Plutarch and Seneca say that for nearly ten centuries this crime was exceedingly infrequent, if in reality it ever occurred, and Titus Livius goes. as far as to affirm that the first parricide was committed by Publicius Malleolus, who killed his mother in the Roman year of 653. But beginning with the century of Augustus, parricides became so frequent, that in less than a century after the execution of Malleclus, Seneca wrote: "Pessimo loco pietas fuit, pestquam sæpius cullcos quam cruces vidimus."

The example of this most odious crime came from one of high birth, for Nero enIdeavored to rid himself of his mother by every possible means. Three times he tried to poison her and failed; he endeavored to drown her, and she saved her life by swimming. At last, he had her stabbed.

The study of the legislation of the various civilized people, at different epochs of their history, show that, if all the societies have invariably punished criminal acts by variable penalties, there is not a single crime, excepting regicide, during the troubled epochs of the formation of States, which has been. more severely repressed than that of parricide.

It is so true that this crime has been considered the most odious, that the primitive. people appear never to have known it, as I have already pointed out, so much so that they had not conceived the possibility of such on act. The Jewish laws do not mention it, but one can judge what might have

been the chastizement of a parricide when one takes into consideration the punishment inflicted upon sons who were wanting in respect for their parents. A son who was guilty of serious disobedience to his parents was stoned (Deut. xxi. 18); he who injured his parents or attacked them in any way was punished by death (Exod. xxi., 17.; Levit. xx., 9; Deut. xxvii., 16). It was the same in Egypt, where the supreme crime, after that of outraging the gods, was to leave one's parents without a tomb. The Athenian laws are also dumb on the subject of parricide. Solon, that great legislator and philosopher whom history ranks highest among those who have made the social education of the Grecian race, formulates no law for this crime, which was reputed an impossibility, at a time, nevertheless, when a father had the right to sell his children.

At a later date, however, this monstrous crime began to be perpetrated, and according to Plato, the punishment was as follows:

"If anyone is unfortunate enough as to dare to voluntarily and with premeditation snatch the soul from the body of his father or of his mother, of his brothers or his children, such is the law that the mortal legislator will apply against his; he shall be condemned to death by the judges; the magistrates will have him executed by the public executioners, and his body will be thrown out of the city in a naked condition in a space designated for this purpose. Al the magistrates, in the name of the entire State, shall carry a stone in the hand, and then throw it at the head of the cadaver, and will thus purify the entire State. He will then be carried beyond the limits of the territory, and there will be left without a tomb, according to the order of the law." This last disposition of the body was the most rigorous, because among the Greeks, as with several other nations, the supreme chastizement was to leave a body without a tomb, and it was to avoid this ignominious shadow cov

ering his brother, Polynices, that Antigonus, that model of fraternal piety, buried the corpse in face of the orders of Creon, King of Thebes, and was condemned to be buried alive.

The parricide was quite as severely punished at Rome, but the law of the Twelve Tables had a special and particularly severe sentence for the one qui parentem necaverit by limiting in the sense of the law the word parentem to the father or the mother. The criminal had his eyes bound, and after having been sewn into a sack made of leather, was thrown into the Tiber or the sea.

At a later date, the law Pompeia increased the severity of the sentence in cases of parricide. The criminal, after having been beaten until blood flowed, was placed in a sack, and with him a dog, monkey, rooster and a viper, and he was then thrown into the Tiber or into the sea. Corvin, an old authority, has attributed a symbolic signification to the choice of these animals. For, according to him, the dog was the symbol of rage, the monkey represented man deprived of reason, the rooster was the symbol of wickedness because he often beats his mother, and the viper represented cruelty because when born. it rends asunder the belly from which it is born. In whatever way one may accept this interpretation, it is none the less true that this punishment was both unique and exceptional. It was exclusively reserved for the parricide, and for a long time such criminals knew no other kind of death, but after a time they were condemned to be turned over to the beasts or burned at the stake so that these three kinds of punishment co-existed, and it would appear that they were the only ones employed during the early part of the Christian era.

During the Middle Ages, the horror inspired by the parricide did not diminish and the punishments inflicted were not lessened. Generally speaking, all the Latin countries used the same punishment as employed at

Rome; the laws transported into the provinces of the empire by the Romans were preserved by tradition and custom governed the law. Other races, who were more fortunate, had their own codes, but regarding the punishment of the parricide, these codes generally copied the Roman law. Thus, in Spain, the Partidas, which date back to the 13th Century, simply reproduced the law of the Twelve Tables. In Italy the same ancient penalties were applied. However, at this time, they began to torture the guilty at the wheel and by fire.

In Germany, the parricide was punished according to the Roman custom. In Saxony especially, the ancient Germanic custom of delivering the parricide to his relations for the application of justice finally put took the place of Roman tradition. The criminal tied in a leather sack was thrown into a deep bog, which, according to an old journal, signifies that this custom was a symbolic one, namely, that the body of a parricide should not soil the sight of man, nor that of the sun. moon, the day or the night.

In France, as in Judea and in Athens, the ancient laws were silent regarding the parricide. The Capitularies of Charlemagne do not mention it, and a contemporary of Feudal France has said that there was no law which expressly mentions the crime of parricide, so that there were no other rules to follow than those established by the jurisprudence of decisions. As to the decisions, they closely followed the Roman tradition. It is probable that this was also the condition of the law in France in the 15th Century. We have more precise and complete notions relative to the matter given us by Damhouder in the work already alluded to, where it will be found that even at the end of the 16th Century nothing had been changed relative to the punishment of parricides either in France or in Holland. The applications of the law Pompeia and of Canon law, which was only a reproduction of the former as re