the volume of Mars, is probably the cause of this apparent anomaly in relation to the inner satellite of that planet. Mr. Doolittle has attempted to explain the phenomenon under consideration, by supposing that Mars met with innumerable meteors, and that the resistance which they offered gave rise to the present condition of the Martial system. This hypothesis would be tenable, perhaps, if we had meteors enough at our disposal; for we see that they would be required in all the secondary systems to which we have referred and also in the solar system itself. But where are the meteors now? Why do they not still continue to pour down in such quantities as to be perceptible in their action on the planetary system? According to the Newtonian principles of reasoning, we need not introduce any foreign cause to explain a phenomenon, when there is a sufficient cause in the system itself. Somehow meteors, during the last quarter of a century, have had to bear the burden of explaining several difficult questions which the solar system presents. Prof. Peirce has recently revived the hypothesis which would account for solar light and heat. Non-luminous bodies are supposed to be distributed through space; why do they not in their motions eclipse some luminous bodies? Some have supposed that the satellites of Mars are foreign bodies which have been drawn to the planet by attraction; but if such were the case, it is difficult to see how the orbits could lose their eccentricity as the case requires. Nor is it probable that both would revolve in the same direction, and so nearly in the same plane. Like the theory of gravitation, every new fact in the system of the world that seemed at first to offer insuperable difficulties to a clear explanation, adds only new strength to the hypothesis of Laplace, when it is correctly interpreted. So it is always with such as are founded in the truth. ART. VII.-INTERSTATE EXTRADITION. 1. Commentaries on International Law. By ROBERT 3. A Treatise on the Law of Extradition, International A CRIMINAL has ever been regarded as the common enemy of mankind. In the earliest times, by the most savage tribes, and among the most barbarous nations, measures were taken to prevent and punish wanton and flagrant outrages against the public peace and prosperity, and individual security and happiness. These measures and appliances have been as various as the civilizations of the different peoples. All nations, whether barbarous or civilized, distinguish crimes into two great classes, viz.: those that undermine the foundations of the State and war against its peace and dignity, and those confined in their effects to the individuals that compose the State. All jurists look upon those crimes that militate against the majesty of the laws and bid defiance to the powers of the State, as far more heinous than the most daring and malicious attacks upon individual security and welfare.* During the period when our Teutonic forefathers reigned supreme in the Albi-fatherland, a price was set upon the life of every freeman, including every wound that could be inflicted upon his person, from the bruising of his little finger or plucking of an eyelash, to the taking of his life; and every injury that could be done to his civic rights, from the theft of a suckling pig, or the killing of a fondling dog, to the armed occupation of his estate. He who took the life of a freeman, maimed his person or otherwise wronged him, or transgressed against his civic rights, was compelled to pay the fixed price therefor, for there was a schedule or tariff for the "traffic" in those days.t Thorpe tells us that the righteous prince, Edward the Confessor, approved of the Anglo-Saxon proverb which declares that we must buy off the spear from our side or endure it "Bicge spere of side oder bere". The same principle was approved and put into practice by our subjected forefathers across the seas, when they bought their life and liberty with the Dane-gilt, which they paid those hordes of northern barbarians that swooped down upon their peaceful abodes in search of victims and plunder. Indeed, this principle has prevailed, to a greater or lesser degree, at some period in the history of all the Aryan branches of the human family, and was carried to its highest point of development by the early legislation of the Celts, in both the Irish and Welsh tribes. In the early forms of civilization every wrong-doer was not accountable for the wrong he had committed to the government, or to the people, as in modern and more highly-developed forms of society, but to the person or family wronged. In those times, the whole population of the various nations was divided into families, clans or gens, and the solidarity of these families or gens was complete; and among these families or clans the Levitical doctrine of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as a man hath done, so shall it be done unto him again," * Owen's Ancient Laws of Wales, Vol. I, p. 701 et seq. + Kemble's Anglo-Saxons, Vol. I, p. 177. Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, p. 467. 2d Series: VOL. VI.—NO. I. 9 prevailed, and the cravings for revenge were satisfied rather than justice meted out. Instead of being looked upon as a crime against the community, a wrong was regarded and treated as a trepass upon individual rights, to be redressed by the injured individual or his kinsmen. Consequently, these early societies were rife with rapine and reprisal; and the wer-gild granted by the mallum to aggrieved or injured parties was not a compensation for any injury they had sustained, nor imposed as a punishment for any infraction of the laws, but was levied to condone and pacify the injured party or his ferocious kinsmen, and thereby to preserve peace and harmony and prevent endless warfare between hostile families. If the wrong-doer was unable to pay the fine thus levied upon him, or the "blood-money," as it has been aptly termed, it was levied upon his kinsmen; that is, upon the family, clan or gens to which he belonged, and they were compelled to pay it in proportion to their relationship to the wrong-doer, to the person injured, or to his kinsmen.* The fragments of the Avesta are the earliest records of Aryan legislation that have survived the wreck of time. In them, we find very distinct evidence of this mutual responsibility of the kinsmen of the wrong-doer to the person wronged, or to his kinsmen.† The ancient Hindoo code betrays, under the modifying superstructure of Braminical institutions, the prevalence of the primal system of family responsibility.+ In those days this same schedule of tariff furnished a great source of revenue to the State -for "the department of justice" was not long in learning to divert a part of the fine thus levied from the pockets of the wronged, or his kinsmen, into its own coffers-and this was in perfect harmony and accord with their ideas of right and wrong, justice and humanity, for the basis of these virtues is as fluctuating as the barometer.|| With the progress from barbarism to civilization, from * Dion. Halicarnassus, III, 10; XIII, 5. Tit. Liv. I, 26; V, 32. + Bleek's Trans. Vendidad, 30-1. Manava Dhasma Sastra, VIII, p. 295 et seq. § Maine's Ancient Law, p. 358. Lecky's History of European Morals, Vol. I, Chap. vii. brutality to humanity, with the growth of law and the development of the idea of justice, we have left those appliances of our phlegmatic ancestors so far behind that today we have a much greater regard for individual security than for public revenue. It would seem from some relics of the monuments of early civilization, that ever since the dawn of that æon when the civil State was organized from barbaric chaos, steps have been taken whereby criminals, having committed crime in one country and fled to another to escape the penalty, can be returned to pay the penalty of infracted law. On the walls of the Temple of Karnak is sculptured the earliest extradition treaty that the monuments of antiquity have preserved to our time. This treaty was between Rameses II and a Khetan prince. Among other provisions there is one-the last-declaring that political fugitives shall be returned, with the following provision for personal safety, viz.: "Whoever shall be delivered up, himself, his wives, his children, let him not be smitten to death; moreover, let him not suffer in the eyes, in the mouth, in the feet; moreover, let not any crime be set up against him." * The policy of thus returning, for trial and punishment, those criminals who have escaped from one country to another, is as manifest as it is just, and recommends itself to every enlightened age and every civilized nation. Grotius, and other eminent jurists, maintain that a State is bound to deliver up fugitives from justice, who flee into it for protection and shelter. The majority of those who have written upon the subject, however, deny that there is any such obligation as a matter of right subsisting between nations, and put it on the ground of comity. The universal practice of all nations, ancient and modern, ignorant and barbarous, is opposed to the jurisprudence of Grotius, his collaborators and disciples. It would seem that the various potentates of the earth would be anxious to enter into arrangements whereby they * Nineteenth Century, Vol. IV. |