Page:Ta Tsing Leu Lee (1810).pdf/92

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4
PENAL LAWS OF CHINA

VI. Sacrilege, is committed by stealing from the temples any of the sacred articles consecrated to divine purposes, or by purloining any article in the immediate use of the Sovereign: similar guilt is incurred by counterfeiting the imperial seal, by administering to the Sovereign improper medicines, or, in general, by the commission of any error or negligence, whereby the safety of his sacred person may be endangered.

VII. Impiety, is discoverable in every instance of disrespect or negligence towards those to whom we owe our being, and by whom we have been educated and protected.—It is likewise committed by those who inform against, or insult, such near while living, or who refuse to mourn for their loss, and to shew respect for their memory, when dead.

VIII. Discord, in families, is the breach of the legal or natural ties which are founded on our connexions by blood or marriage; under this head may be classed the crimes of killing, wounding, maltreating any of those relations or connexions to whom, when deceased, the ceremony of mourning is legally due[1].

IX. Insubordination, is the rising against, or murdering, a superior magistrate by an inferior; or any insurrection against the magistrates in general, by the people.

X. Incest, is the co-habitation, or promiscuous intercourse, of persons related in any of the degrees within which marriage is prohibited[2].

  1. The nature and extent of these connexions is in some degree shewn in the preliminary part of the code, and also occasionally in some of the subsequent sections, and in the Appendix.
  2. See the division of the code, intitled, Marriage, and also the division, intitled, Incest and Adultery.
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