Ancient Laws respecting Fires.

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Chap. 8.J

against incendiaries, and night watchmen were ordered to be appointedin every town and city. In 1429 another act declared, “ If any threatenby casting bills to burn a house, if money be not laid in a certain place,and after do burn the house, such burning shall be adjudged high trea-son.” Beckman says that regulations respecting fires were instituted inFrankfort in 1460. In 1468 straw thatch was forbidden, and in 1474shingle roofs were prohibited. The first general Order respecting fires inSaxony are dated 1521, those for Dresden in 1529, and there is one res-pecting buildings in Augsburg, dated 1447. The following preamble to anact passed in the 37th year of Henry VIII . by which those found guilty ofthe crimes enumerated, were to suffer “ the pains of death,” is interesting inmore respects than one. “ Where divers and sundry malicious and envi-ous persons, being men of evil perverse dispositions, and seduced by theinstigation of the devil, and minding the hurt, undoing and impoverish-ment of divers of the kings true and faithful subjects, as enemies to theCommonwealth of this realm, and as no true and obedient subjects untothe kings majesty, of their malicious and wicked minds, have of late in-vented and practised a new damnable kind of vice, displeasure anddamnifying of the kings true subjects and the Commonwealth of thisrealm, as in secret burning of frames of timber, prepared and made by theowners thereof, ready to be set up and edified for houses : cutting out ofheads and dams of pools, motes, stews and several waters : cutting ofconduit-heads, or conduit-pipes : burning of wains and carts loaden withcoals or other goods : burning of heaps of wood, cut, felled and preparedfor making coals : cutting out of beasts tongues : cutting off the ears ofthe kings subjects : barking of apple trees, pear trees, and other fruittrees; and divers other like kinds of miserable offences, to the great dis-pleasure of Almighty God and of the kings majesty,” &c. (Statutes atlarge.)

The crime of arson was rife in old Rome , and it is singulär that themode of punishing those found guilty of it, is among the numerous ancientcustoms that have been retained by Roman Catholics in their religiousinstitutions. The tunica molesta of the Romans was a garment made of-paper, flax, or tow, and smeared with pitch, bitumen or wax, in whichincendiaries were burnt; and hence arose the peculiar dress worn by thevictims in those horrible, those demoniacal “ Acts of faith !” the Auto daFe, of Italian, Spanish , and Portuguese inquisitions, (to which the scenesin Smithfield and other parts of England may be added,) acts, in whichthe Order of justice was completely reversed—the sufferers being the inno-cents, and the court and judges the real criminals.