The science of the law should keep pace with the advance of the student of philosophy. The law should ever stand aloof—even as a just parent—from any punishment prompted solely through the mad power of might. When it has attempted to inflict punishment unjustly, the causes and effects, the advantages, if any and the disadvantage of such procedure, should be thoroughly scrutinized. Laws are man-made, in popular governments and the laws should be improved for the benefit of the people. We have seen that for centuries, upon the obstinate refusal of a prisoner charged with felony, to enter his plea, the inhuman judgments of the courts—established for the administration of justice—were that he should be literally “pressed to death,” regardless of his guilt or innocence of the charge that he was called upon to answer. With the passing of this horrible institution—as with others of the past centuries—we can perhaps congratulate ourselves, that with the evolution of the institutions of our civilization, humanity has generally triumphed over inhumanity and the mistakes of our ancestors, although most dearly bought, furnish a lasting object lesson for present and future generations. Every generation, however, has its follies and mistakes and nonsense is not confined wholly to the past ages, but with the errors of the past before us, we ought to avoid the same mistakes that it took such suffering and experience to correct. However unwise and unjust the standards of our ancestors may have been, which made possible the wholesale legal murder of thousands of human beings, who, for different reasons, defied the fetish and barbarous custom that developed the cruel institution, _peine forte et dure_, this institution, like many others of the past, ought to warn us, like a beacon light, of the dangerous shoals and reefs, which the ship of state should be safely piloted around. But our own procedure contains many incongruities and erroneous standards, that should be corrected, and while priding ourselves upon the fact that nothing so inhuman as “pressing to death,” obtains today, we are still guilty of many “crimes against criminals,” which succeeding ages, in the perfection of the science of jurisprudence, will no doubt regard in much the same light as we of the present age look upon the cruel punishment, _peine forte et dure_. FOOTNOTES: [1] The terms are pronounced pān fōrt ā dūr. [2] II. Reeve’s History English Law, p. 423. [3] Coke, 2 Inst. 178, 179; Hale’s P. C. vol. ii., 322. “He was to be laid down, naked, upon the ground, on his back, his feet and head and loins covered, his arms and legs drawn apart, by cords, and as much weight of iron or stone as he could bear, was placed upon his chest.” This punishment was called also, “pressing to death.” Bouvier’s Dictionary; II. Reeve’s History English Law, 134; 4 Sh. Bl. Comm. 324; Britton, ch. 4 fol. ii; Fleta, lib. I., 34, sec. 33.