Moreover, the penal code of the Romans, in reference to breaches of trust, or carelessness, or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered, may have been too severe, as is the case in England in reference to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a man to death who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or entered in the night his neighbor's house. But severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and society becomes impossible when there is no efficient protection to property. If sheep can be killed by dogs, if orchards can be stripped of their fruit, and jewelry be appropriated by servants with impunity, a great stimulus to honest industry is taken away, and men will be forced to seek more distant homes where they can reap the fruits of toil, or will give up in despair. Society was never more secure and happy in England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies were visited with certain retribution. Every traveler in France and England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those old countries, restricted as are political privileges, are vastly superior to our own. The Romans lost, under the emperors, their political rights; but they gained protection and safety in their relations with society. And where quiet and industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, and are protected in their dealings from scoundrels, and have ample scope for industrial enterprise, and are free to choose their private pleasures, they resign themselves to the loss of electing their rulers without great unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the deprivation of the elective franchise, great and glorious as is this privilege. The arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political aspirations and rights, but the evils of political slavery were qualified and set off by the excellence of the civil code, and the privileges of social freedom. [Sidenote: Intricacy and uncertainty of the law.] The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned counsel could only be employed by the rich, and even judges were venal. So that the poor did not easily find adequate redress, and the good became an evil. But all this is the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society. Material civilization will lead to an undue estimate of money. And when money purchases all that artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment are forced to retreat, as hermits sought a solitude, when society had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its renovation.