Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/255

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CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
lxv

them worthy of being musicians to his holiness ; so that Castrato, and Musico del Papa, are synonimous. It is not long since you might have seen at Naples, written in great letters over the doors of certain barbers, Qui si castrano maravigliosamente i puti: here boys are castrated in the best manner.

CHAPTER XXI.

On Confiscation.

IT is a maxim received at the bar, that he who forfeits his effects; forfeits his effects, a maxim which prevails in those countries where custom serves instead of law. So that, as we have already observed, the children of one who puts an end to his own life, are condemned to perish with hunger, equally with those of an assassin. Thus in every case, a whole family is punished for the crime of an individual. Thus when the father of a family is condemned to the gallies for life, by an arbitrary sentence, whether it be for having harboured a preacher, or for hearing his sermon in a cavern

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