Chapter I: Front Matter

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._

PRIMITIVE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

By JAMES A. FARRER.

‘A book which is really both instructive and amusing, and which will open a new field of thought to many readers.’—ATHENÆUM.

‘An admirable example of the application of the scientific method and the working of the truly scientific spirit.’—SATURDAY REVIEW.

CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W.

CRIMES
AND
PUNISHMENTS

INCLUDING A NEW TRANSLATION OF
_BECCARIA’S ‘DEI DELITTI & DELLE PENE’_

BY
JAMES ANSON FARRER

London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1880

_All rights reserved_

_PREFACE._

The reason for translating afresh Beccaria’s ‘Dei Delitti e delle Pene’ (‘Crimes and Punishments’) is, that it is a classical work of its kind, and that the interest which belongs to it is still far from being merely historical.

It was translated into English long ago; but the change in the order of the several chapters and paragraphs, which the work underwent before it was clothed in its final dress, is so great, that the new translation and the old one really constitute quite different books.

The object of the preliminary chapters is to place the historical importance of the original in its just light, and to increase the interest of the subjects it discusses.

The Translator has abstained from all criticism or comment of the original, less from complete agreement with all its ideas than from the conviction that annotations are more often vexatious than profitable, and are best left to the reader to make for himself. There is scarcely a sentence in the book on which a commentator might not be prolix.

To combine the maximum of perspicuity with the maximum of fidelity to the original has been the cardinal principle observed in the translation. But it would, of course, have been no less impossible than contrary to the spirit of the original to have attempted to render perfectly comprehensible what the author purposely wrapped in obscurity. A translation can but follow the lights and shades of the surface it reflects, rendering clear what is clear in the original, and opaque what is opaque.

_CONTENTS._

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