such as parricide, which was followed by loss of inheritance; sacrilege
and the murder of a master by a slave, which were punished with death.
It is a natural inference that, as the royal treasury was enriched by
these imposts, the sovereign would hardly attempt to check the annual
harvest of iniquity by which his revenue was increased. Still, although
the moral sense is shocked by a system which makes the ruler's interest
identical with the wickedness of his people, and holds out a comparative
immunity in evil-doing for the rich, it was better that crime should be
punished by money rather than not be punished at all. A severe tax,
which the noble reluctantly paid and which the penniless culprit commuted
by personal slavery, was sufficiently unjust as well as absurd, yet it
served to mitigate the horrors with which tumult, rapine, and murder
enveloped those early days. Gradually, as the light of reason broke upon
the dark ages, the most noxious features of the system were removed,
while the general sentiment of reverence for law remained.