Crime & punishment > Essay on crimes and punishments

Crimes and Punishments. 229
CHAP. XXI.
On Confifcation.
IT is a maxim received at the bar, that he
•who forfeits his life forfeits his effects ; a maxim
which prevails in thofe countries where cuftom
ferves inftead of law. So that, as we have al¬
ready obferved, the children of one who puts
an end to his own life, are condemned to perifh.
with hunger, equally with thofe of an alTaffin.
Thus, in every cafe, a whole family is punilhed
for the crime of an individual. Thus when the
father of a family is condemned to the gallies for
life, by an arbitrary fentence, whether it be for
having harboured a preacher, or for hearing his
fermon in a cavern or a defert, his wife and chil¬
dren are reduced to beg their bread.
That law which confifts in depriving an or¬
phan of fupport, and in giving to one man the
pofleflions of another, was unknown in the
times of the Roman republic. It was firft in¬
troduced by Sylla, in his profcriptions, whofe0
example one would fcarce have thought worthy
imitation. Nor indeed was this law adopted by
Cefar, by Trajan, or by Antoninus, whofe name
U is