[the law has given him a right,—this is a civil injury and not a crime for here only the right of an individual is concerned, and it is immaterial to the public which of us is in possession of the land. But treason, murder and robbery, are properly ranked among crimes; since, besides the injury done to individuals, they strike at the very being of society; which cannot possibly subsist, where actions of this sort are suffered to escape with impunity. In all cases, crime includes an injury: every public offence is also a private wrong, and somewhat more; it affects the individual, and it likewise affects the community (f). Thus treason in imagining the sovereign's death, involves in it conspiracy against an individual, which is also a civil injury; but as this species of treason in its consequences principally tends to the dissolution of government, and the destruction thereby of the order and peace of society,— this raises it to a crime of the highest magnitude. Murder is an injury to the life of an individual: but the law of society considers principally the loss which the State sustains by being deprived of a member, and the pernicious example thereby set for others to do the like. Robbery may be considered in the same view: it is an injury to private property; but were that all, a civil satisfaction in damages might atone for it: the public mischief is the thing for the prevention of which our laws have made it a felonious offence. In these gross and atrocious injuries, the private wrong is swallowed up in the public. We seldom hear any mention made of satisfaction to the individual, the satisfaction to the community being so very great (g). But there are crimes of an inferior nature, in (f) "All crimes affect the public, and most crimes specially affect individuals. But in some the injury to the public is most obvious, in others the injury to individuals." (Report of the Criminal Code Bill Commission, p. 14.) (9) There still exists, however, a remedy for the private wrong; even in cases of felony, it is only suspended during the prosecution for the crime. The authorities for this doctrine are collected and reviewed by the Court of Queen's Bench in the case of Stone ". March (6 B. & C. 551), which was [which the public punishment is not so severe; and herein the distinction of crimes from civil injuries is very apparent. For instance, in the case of battery or beating another, the aggressor may be indicted for this, at the suit of the Crown, for disturbing the public peace, and be punished criminally by fine and imprisonment: and the party beaten may also have his private remedy by action of trespass, for the injury which he in particular sustains; and recover a civil satisfaction in damages (). So also in case of a public nuisance,-as digging a ditch across a highway, this is punishable by indictment as a common offence to the whole kingdom and all the king's subjects; but if any individual sustains any special damage thereby, -as laming his horse, breaking his carriage, or the like,— the offender may be compelled to make ample satisfaction, as well for the private injury as for the public wrong. Upon the whole we may observe, that, in taking cognizance of all wrongs or unlawful acts, the law has a double view, viz., not only to redress the party injured, by either restoring to him his right (if possible), or by giving him an equivalent,-the manner of which was the object of our inquiries in the fifth book of these Commentaries; but also to procure to the public the benefit of society; by preventing or punishing every breach or violation of those laws which the sovereign power has thought proper to establish, for the government and tranquillity of the whole. What those breaches are, and how prevented or punished, are to be considered in the present Book.] In ordinary language we understand, when we speak of crimes, such only as are subjects for indictment,—a proceeding of which we shall have occasion to speak here an action against the surviving partners of Fauntleroy the forger, connected with felonious transactions in which he had been engaged. (h) Under certain circumstances, however, a person who has been convicted and fined for an assault or battery, is freed thereby from further civil or criminal proceedings in respect of the same cause. (See 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 45.) after. For such breaches of law as are not the subjects for indictment, and are punishable merely by a pecuniary penalty recoverable on a summary conviction before one or more justices of the peace, are not usually designated as crimes, but by the more general term of "offences." Crimes thus understood (or indictable offences) consist either of misdemeanors or felonies. The term misdemeanor being, properly speaking, synonymous with that of crime; though, in common usage, the word is made to denote such crimes as amount not to felonies (i). Into the nature and meaning of the latter denomination, it will be expedient to enter a little more at large. [Felony, in the general acceptation of our English law, comprises every species of crime, which occasioned at common law the forfeiture of lands and goods (). Treason itself, says Sir Edward Coke, was antiently comprised under the name of felony (7); and in confirmation of this we may observe that the statute of treasons, (25 Edw. III. st. 5, c. 2,) speaking of some dubious crimes, directs a reference to parliament, that it may be there adjudged "whether they be treason or other felony." All treasons, therefore, strictly speaking, are felonies, though all felonies are not treason. To explain this matter a little further: the word felony, or felonia, is of undoubted feudal origin (m); but the derivation of it has much puzzled the juridical lexicographers Prateus, Calvinus, and the rest; some deriving it from the (i) As to the technical force of the words "misdemeanor" and 'felony" in an indictment, see R. v. Powell, 2 B. & Ad. 75; Ryalls v. The Queen, 11 Q. B. 794; Campbell v. The Queen, ib. 799. In order to prevent any failure of justice by reason of this technical distinction, it has been provided that if upon the trial of any person for any misdemeanor it shall appear (k) Vide sup. vol. 1. p. 455. (m) See Gloss. tit. Felon. [Greek nos, an impostor or deceiver; others from the Latin fallo, fefelli, to countenance which they would have called it fallonia. Sir E. Coke, as his manner is, has given us a still stranger etymology (n),-that it is crimen animo felleo perpetratum, with a bitter or gallish inclination. But all of them agree in the description that it is such a crime as occasioned the forfeiture of all the offender's lands or goods. And this gives great probability to Sir H. Spelman's Teutonic or German derivation of it; in which language indeed, (as the word is clearly of feudal origin,) we ought rather to look for its signification than among the Greeks and Romans. According to Spelman, then, fe-lon is derived from two northern words: fee, which signifies the fief, feud, or beneficiary estate; and lon, which signifies price or value. Felony is therefore the same as pretium feudi; the consideration for which a man gives up his fief; as we say, in common speech, such an act is as much as your life or estate is worth. In this sense it will clearly signify the feudal forfeiture, or act by which an estate was forfeited or escheated to the lord. To confirm this we may observe, that it is in this sense of forfeiture to the lord, that the feudal writers constantly use it. For all those acts, whether of a criminal nature or not, which at this day are generally forfeiture of copyhold estates (o), are styled felonia in the feudal law: "scilicet per quas feodum amittitur" (p). As "si domino deservire noluerit" (q); "si per annum et diem cessaverit in petendâ investiturâ” (r); “ si dominum ejuraverit, i.e. negaverit se a domino feudum habere" (s); "si a domino, in jus eum rocante, ter citatus non comparuerit" (t): all these, with many others, are still causes of forfeiture in our copyhold estates; and were denominated felonies by the feudal con (") 1 Inst. 391. (0) Vide sup. vol. 1. p. 631. (p) Fend. 1. ii. t. 16. (2) Ib. I, i. t. 21. (r) Ib. 1. ii. t. 24. [stitutions. So likewise injuries of a more substantial or criminal nature were denominated felonies, that is, forfeitures; as assaulting or beating the lord (u), or vitiating his wife or daughter, "si dominum cucurbitaverit, i. e. cum uxore ejus concubuerit" (x). And as these contempts or smaller offences were felonies or acts of forfeiture, of course greater crimes, as murder and robbery, fell under the same denomination. On the other hand, the lord might be guilty of felony, or forfeit his seigniory to the vassal, by the same acts as the vassal would have forfeited his feud to the lord: "si dominus commiserit feloniam, per quam vasallus amitteret feudum si eam commiserit in dominum, feudi proprietatem etiam dominus perdere debet" (y). One instance given of this sort of felony in the lord, is beating the servant of his vassal, so that he lost his service; which seems merely in the nature of a civil injury, so far as it respects the vassal. And all these felonies were to be determined "per laudamentum sive judicium parium suorum in the lord's court, as with us forfeitures of copyhold lands are presentable by the homage in the court baron. Felony, and the act of forfeiture to the lord, being thus synonymous terms in the feudal law, we may easily trace the reason why,-upon the introduction of that law into England, those crimes which induced such forfeiture or escheat of lands, and, by a small deflexion from the original sense, such as induced the forfeiture of goods also, were denominated felonies. Thus it was said that suicide, robbery, and rape were felonies; i. e. the consequence of such crimes was forfeiture; till, by long use, we began to signify by the term of felony the actual crime committed, and not the penal consequence.] Hence it follows, that capital punishment does by no means enter into the true idea and definition of felony (≈). (u) Feud. 1. ii. t. 24, s. 2. () Ib. 1. i. t. 5. (y) Ib. 1. ii. t. 26, 47. (*) At common law, however, the idea of felony was in general connected with that of capital punishment; "and therefore, if a statute "makes any new offence felony, |