SHEMOT 22

3 If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

In the treatment of theft, how much more excellent was the Mosaic than the British law. In Britain, thieves are maintained at the expense of the State for a certain number of years...True, the thief's maintenance is not of a liberal character, and personal liberty is abridged; but still, as a fact, the thief is maintained and waited on by guardians, while the victim of the theft may suffer loss and heartbreak, for which there is no compensation. The criminal law of England benefits the thief more than anyone else.

The community benefits by the thief's restraint for a time, for which, however, the community has to pay. The only sufferer is the hapless victim of the crime. Carlyle bewailed the tendency of such a system to breed a class of professional law breakers, whose business it is to prey upon other people, either in prison or out of it.

Under the law of Moses, the thief had to make good his theft to the person from whom he had stolen. If he stole an ox, he had to pay to him five oxen; if a sheep, four sheep (the difference between four sheep and five oxen probably representing the different degrees of injury inflicted upon the community--the ox being used in the cultivation of the fields, while a sheep was only so much wool and mutton). "Very good", says the modern legislator, "very good" with a smile of superiority; "but suppose the thief has neither ox, nor sheep, nor money, how is such a law to be carried out?" The law says in that case, "he shall be sold for his theft", and the loser of the stolen ox or sheep would be compensated out of the proceeds of the sale.

Think what a punishment this would be. The thief would be taken away by the person buying him, and used as a bondservant for the most menial work. He would be known on the farm as a sold thief, which would ensure a quite sufficient stigma on the criminal, while at the same time being made to pay for his own keep by labour, and turning his wretched existence to better advantage than by cooping him up in a jail.

It will be seen at a glance that more than one good purpose would be served by such a mode of dealing with him. His sale would compensate the parties injured by the theft; the community would not be burdened by his maintenance; the development of professional thieves would be prevented; while as regards the thief himself, judgment with mercy would temper his lot, for as the member of another man's establishment he would find his punishment in his want of liberty, and the hard service belonging to his position as a bond-servant, and at the same time the fullest opportunity of retrieving his character by faithful service among those by whom he was surrounded.

"Ah, very good, very good", again remarks our modern philosopher; "but suppose the fellow should refuse to work; suppose he should prove an incorrigible thief and vagabond?" Well, the law had a remedy for that--simple, but effectual. Though shocking to mere modern scruples, incorrigibles were to be brought before the judges and stoned.

Carlyle was in raptures over this method of dealing with the criminal classes. The more it is thought over, the more it will be found a perfect solution--delivering the community from the plague of professional spoilers, and the burden of their costly maintenance, the individual sufferers from loss, and the thief from the incurable taint of criminality attaching to him under the British institutions.

:Law of Moses Ch 10.

He shall be sold for his theft

Antislavery sentiment has clouded judgment here. It is no more dreadful to sell a thief than to sell a man to military bondage for a shilling a day. The difference is in form and sentiment merely. It may be said the soldier chooses his avocation, while the thief under Moses was sold against his will. True, but is an offender against the law entitled to choice?

If a man who has done no wrong may voluntarily sell himself to the Crown, there is nothing very monstrous in an evil-doer being sold against his will. A murderer is hanged without compunction or consultation. Why should it be more dreadful for an evil-doer to make some reparation for his crimes by a profitable sale to some cultivator of the land?---specially bearing in mind that all forms of service were governed by the septennial year of release, and no decent human being doomed to hopeless slavery.

There is no place in the Mosaic system for the brutal traffic in flesh and blood, characteristic of modern slavery. Man-stealing was a crime under Moses, punishable with death (Exod. 21:16); at the same time, subject to prescriptions of justice and humanity, it was lawful under Moses to possess and control human service (Exod. 21:2). Man might possess anything, provided he used it, in mercy and truth, as other parts of the law required.

:Law of Moses Ch 10