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For the Literary Magazine.

a case of murder.

AUSTERE moralists are inclin-
ed to consider drunkenness as a
crime to be punished by human
tribunals, but this system, if adopt-
ed, would involve law-makers and
judges in very great difficulties.
They would find it impossible to
form an adequate scale applicable
to the offence.

For example, how shall casuists
determine the degree of guilt of one
whom a few drops of any thing spi-
rituous intoxicates into a mischie-
vous insanity, and of one who can
drink bottle after bottle with impu-
nity, or whom topping only sinks
into impotent stupidity, or idiotic
good-nature? And does not the
guilt of drunkenness consist rather
in the indulgence of appetite than
in the deprivation of reason?

Every crime, indeed, chargeable
on human nature, is capable of ca-
suistical distinctions, by which, if the
makers or expounders of law would
hearken to them, they would be en-
tangled in endless riddles.

Few would hesitate to pronounce
a man guilty of murder who should
plunge his knife into a poor sick
wretch who was unable to help him-
self. This deed would not be thought
justified by any guilt imputed to the
sick man, for it is not every indivi-
dual who is commissioned to punish,
with death, another who, in his
opinion, deserves it. What judg-
ment, then, are we required to pass
upon the following incident?

A friend of mine, who studied at
a celebrated university, having a
strong attachment to anatomy, took
great pleasure in attending dissec-
tions. One evening he, and many
others, were anxiously attending the


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commencement of that operation, on
the body of a notorious malefactor,
which lay stretched out on the table
before them: the surgeon, who had
been placing it in a proper position,
turning to the company, addressed
them thus: I am pretty certain,
gentlemen, from the warmth of the
subject, and the flexibility of the
limbs, that by a proper degree of
attention and care, the vital heat
would return, and life, in conse-
quence, take place. But then, when
it is considered what a rascal we
should again have among us; that
he was executed for having murder-
ed a girl who was with child by
him; and that, were he to be re-
stored to life, he would probably
murder somebody else: when all
these things are coolly considered,
I own, it is my opinion, that we had
better proceed with the dissection.
With these words, he plunged the
knife into the breast of the culprit,
and precluded at once all dread of
future assassinations, or hopes of fu-
ture repentance.