'If no malefactor or accomplice in a crime ought to remain unpunished, how much more ought he to be put down who commits murder wickedly and trivially! Thus, as masters in their pride frequently put their slaves to death without any fault on their parts, it is expedient to utterly abrogate this license, and to ordain that this law shall be for ever observed by all. No master or mistress shall be allowed to inflict death, without public judgment, upon any of their slaves, male or female, or upon any person dependent upon them. If a slave or any other servant commits a crime which may subject him to capital punishment, his master or his accuser shall immediately make it known to the judge of the place where the action has been committed, or the count, or the duke. After investigation into the matter, if the crime is proved, let the guilty undergo, either through the judge or his own master, the sentence of death he has deserved; provided that, if the judge will not put the criminal to death, he shall draw up in writing a capital sentence against him, and then it shall be in the discretion of the master to slay him or to spare his life. At the same time, if the slave, by a fatal audacity, offering resistance to his master, has struck him, or attempted to strike him, with a weapon, a stone, or any other thing, and if the master, endeavouring to defend himself, has slain the slave in his anger, he shall not be at all held amenable to the penalties of homicide. But it shall be necessary to prove that the fact has thus happened, and that by the testimony or oath of the male or female slaves who were present, and by the oath of the perpetrator himself. Whoever, from pure wickedness, by his own hand, or by that of another, shall kill his slave without public judgment, shall be declared infamous, and incapable of appearing as a witness, condemned to pass the rest of his life in exile and penitence, and his possessions fall to his next of kin, to whom the law accords the inheritance.'--(For. Jud. 1. vi. tit. v. 1. 12.) {111}