Sec. 24.

Prostitution before the law.

"Escal. How would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?

Clo. If the law would allow it, sir.

Escal. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.

Clo. Does your worship mean to geld and spay all the youth in the city?

Escal. No, Pompey.

Clo. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then: if your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.

Prince Henry is quoted as saying to the Hostess, in 1' Henry IV: "P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly." (Act III, Scene III.)

The wicked Margaret is made to say, in defense of Suffolk, when charged with Gloster's death, in 2' Henry VI: "Q. Mar. . . It may be judg'd, I made the duke away: So shall my name with slanders tongue be wounded, And princes courts be fill'd with my reproach." (Act III, Scene II.)

Suffolk thus replies to his accusers, in 2' Henry VI: “Suff. I wear no knife, to slaughter sleeping men; but here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease, That shall be scoured in his rancourous heart, That slanders me with murder's crimson badge." (Act III, Scene II.)

And Warwick, suggests the proprieties of the situation to Queen Margaret in her defense of Suffolk, as follows: "War. Madam, be still; with reverence, may I say; For every word, you speak in his behalf, Is slander to your royal dignity." (2' Henry VI, Act III, Scene II.)

Excusing himself for his attempt to murder Margaret, Richard III, explains to Lady Anne: "Glo. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue, That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders." (Richard III, Act I, Scene II.)

The king refers to slander thus, in Hamlet: ". . haply, slander, whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poison'd shot-may miss our name, and hit the woundless air." (Act IV, Scene I.)

And Othello tells Iago, after he has aroused his jealousy of his wife: "If thou dost slander her and torture me, Never pray more: abandon all remorse." (Act III, Scene III.)

Escal. There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: it is but heading and hanging.

Clo. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten years together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads. If this law hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest house in it, after three pence a day: If you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey told you so."

Keeping a bawdy house was an offense both at common law and by statute. At common law, the offense was indictable as a common nuisance and it clearly involves moral turpitude. The reasoning of the Clown, in defense of the practice, because of the prevalency of the offense, of course is not sound, for the same argument might be used to defend stealing or any other crime, if prevalent.

Sec. 25. Sentence.

"Prov. Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow? Ang. Did I not tell thee, yea? Had'st thou not order? Why dost thou ask again?

Prov. Lest I might be too rash:

Under your good correction, I have seen,
When, after execution, judgment hath
Repented o'er his doom."

Execution, in criminal law, is putting a convict to death, agreeably to law, in pursuance of a sentence of the court. After the sentence of the law is put in force, by an execution, of course it would be too late to correct any mistake, hence the suggestion to make any corrections before execution performed.

1 Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene I.

25 M. & W. Exch. 249.

8 Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene II.

44 Bl. Comm. 403; 3 Bl. Comm. 412.

In another play, the following sentence is pronounced:

"King.

Sir, I will pronounce your sentence; You shall fast a week with bran and water." (Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, Scene I.)

Sec. 26. Plea for pardon.

"Ang. He's sentenced; 'tis too late.

Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again: Well believe this,

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace,
As mercy does. If he had been as you,

And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Speaking of Bolingbroke, King Richard II, said: "K. Rich. O God: O God:

That e're this tongue of mine,

That laid the sentence of dread banishment

On yon proud man, should take it off again
With words of sooth."

(Act III, Scene III.)

After his exile, Norfolk said to King Richard II: "Nor. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, And all unlooked for from your highness mouth."

(Act I, Scene III.) The Chief Justice explains to Henry V, how he had enforced the law, during his father's reign, and then concludes:

"Oh. Jus.

.

After this cold considerance, sentence me." (2' Henry IV, Act V, Scene II.) King Henry V said to Sir Thomas Grey, after discovery of his treason:

"K. Hen. God quit you, in his mercy. Hear your sentence." (Act II, Scene II.)

Brabantio, on the loss of his daughter to the Moor, Othello, under the Duke's decision, said:

"He bears the sentence well that nothing bears,
But the free comfort which from thence he hears:
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow,
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow."

(Act I, Scene III.) Tarquin lulls his conscience to rest with the philosophy that "Who fears a sentence or an old man's saw, Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe."

(Rape of Lucrece, 244, 245.)

Isab. Alas, Alas:

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once:
And he that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy: How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breath within your lips,
Like man new made.

Ang. Be you content, fair maid:

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother or my son,

It should be thus with him;-He must die to-morrow. Isab. To-morrow? O, that's sudden; Spare him, spare him. He's not prepared for death: Even for our kitchens, We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves? Good, good, my lord,bethink you?
Who is it that hath died for this offense?

There's many have committed it.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:
Those many had not dared to do that evil,

If the first man that did the edict infringe,
Had answered for his deed: now, 'tis awake.

Isab. Yet show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss'd offense would after gall:
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies to-morrow: be content.

Isab. So you must be the first, that gives this sentence?
And he, that suffers: O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Could great men thunder,

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer,

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but
thunder.-

Merciful heaven:

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle:-0, but man, proud man;
Drest in a little brief authority;

Most ignorant of what he 's most assured,
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep: who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

We cannot weigh our brother, with ourself:
Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them;
But, in less, foul profanation.

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skims the vice o' the top; Go to your bosom;
Knock there; and ask your heart, what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life."

This colloquy denotes a very accurate knowledge of the underlying principle of the pardoning power and that it is essentially an act of grace, proceeding from the power intrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the particular individual receiving the pardon from the punishment the law prescribes for the crime committed." As all pardons are necessarily in derogation of law, if the pardon is equitable, the law is bad, since good laws should be rigidly enforced and violations thereof ought not to be condoned or excused. But back of this, as human nature is frail, at best, the pardoning power is recognized, in order to prevent injustice, or to show mercy, in given cases, when to permit the law to be enforced would entail injustice. That the Poet had a clear and accurate understanding of this reason for the lodgment of the power invoked by Isabella cannot be doubted, after a perusal of this play.

'Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene II.

27 Pet. 160.

'Bouvier's Law Dict.

Referring to the pardoning power, as an act of clemency, the Poet, in Comedy of Errors (Act I, Scene I) makes the Duke say: