Speaking of the Azteks, Mr. Bancroft observes that "the greater part of their code might, like Draco's, have been written in blood--so severe were the penalties inflicted for crimes that were comparatively slight, and so brutal and bloody were the ways of carrying those punishments into execution."[118] The punishment of death was inflicted on the man who dressed himself like a woman, on the woman who dressed herself like a man,[119] on tutors who did not give a good account of the estates of their pupils,[120] on those who carried off, or changed, the boundaries placed in the fields by public authority;[121] and should an adulterer endeavour to save himself by killing the injured husband, his fate was to be roasted alive before a slow fire, his body being basted with salt and water that death might not come to his relief too soon.[122] Nor did the ancient Peruvian code economise human suffering by proportioning penalties to crimes; the punishment most commonly prescribed by it was death.[123] The penal code of China, though less cruel in various respects than the European legislation of the eighteenth century, awards death for a third and aggravated theft, for defacing the branding inflicted for former offences,[124] and for privately casting copper coin;[125] whilst for the commission of the most heinous crimes {187} the penalty is "to be cut into ten thousand pieces," which appears to amount, at least, to a license to the executioner to aggravate and prolong the sufferings of the criminal by any species of cruelty he may think proper to inflict.[126] In Japan, before the revolution of 1871, "the punishments for crime had been both rigorous and cruel; death was the usual punishment, and death accompanied by tortures was the penalty for aggravated crimes.[127] According to the Mosaic law, death is inflicted for such offences as breach of the Lord's day,[128] going to wizards,[129] eating the fat of a beast of sacrifice,[130] eating blood,[131] approaching unto a woman "as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness,"[132] and various kinds of sexual offences.[133] The laws of Manu provide capital punishment for those who forge royal edicts and corrupt royal ministers;[134] for those who break into a royal store-house, an armoury, or a temple, and those who steal elephants, horses, or chariots;[135] for thieves who are taken with the stolen goods and the implements of burglary;[136] for cut-purses on the third conviction;[137] whilst a wife, who, proud of the greatness of her relatives or her own excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord, shall be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many, and the male offender shall be burnt on a red-hot iron bed.[138] [Footnote 118: Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, ii. 454.] [Footnote 119: Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 358.] [Footnote 120: _Ibid._ i. 359.] [Footnote 121: _Ibid._ i. 355.] [Footnote 122: Bancroft, _op. cit._ ii. 465 _sq._]