[Footnote 44: Buchanan, _North American Indians_, p. 160 _sq._] [Footnote 45: Kohler, in _Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss._ xiv. 448.] [Footnote 46: Bamler, quoted by Kohler, _ibid._ xiv. 381.] [Footnote 47: Merker, quoted by Kohler, _ibid._ xv. 64.] [Footnote 48: Kohler, _ibid._ xv. 353.] [Footnote 49: Lang, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 261.] [Footnote 50: Miss Kingsley, in her Introduction to Dennett's _Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort_, p. xi.] These instances of occasional discrimination in savage justice are particularly interesting in the face of the fact that, even among peoples who have attained a higher degree of culture, innocent persons are often punished by law for bringing about events without any fault of theirs. It is a principle of the Chinese law that "all persons who kill or wound others purely by accident, shall be permitted to redeem themselves from the punishment of killing or wounding in an affray, by the payment in each case of a fine to the family of the person deceased or wounded."[51] But there are exceptions to this rule. Any {224} person who kills his father, mother, paternal grandfather or grandmother, and any wife who kills her husband's father, mother, paternal grandfather or grandmother, "purely by accident, shall still be punished with 100 blows and perpetual banishment to the distance of 3,000 _lee_. In the case of wounding purely by accident, the persons convicted thereof shall be punished with 100 blows and three years' banishment: in these cases, moreover, the parties shall not be permitted to redeem themselves from punishment by the payment of a fine, as usual in the ordinary cases of accident."[52] Again, slaves who accidentally kill their masters, "shall suffer death, by being strangled at the usual period."[53] It is also a characteristic provision of the Chinese law that an act of grace is necessary for relieving all those from punishment who have offended accidentally and inadvertently.[54] [Footnote 51: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. ccxcii. p. 314.] [Footnote 52: _Ibid._ sec. cccxix. p. 347. _Cf._ _ibid._ sec. ccxcii. p. 314.] [Footnote 53: _Ibid._ sec. cccxiv. p. 338.] [Footnote 54: _Ibid._ sec. xvi. p. 18.] It is said in the Laws of [Hv]ammurabi:--"If a man has struck a man in a quarrel, and has caused him a wound, that man shall swear 'I did not strike him knowing' and shall answer for the doctor. If he has died of his blows, he shall swear, and if he be of gentle birth he shall pay half a mina of silver. If he be the son of a poor man, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver."[55] [Footnote 55: _Laws of [Hv]ammurabi_, 206 _sqq._]