Having now considered the several punishments which restrain the faculty of locomotion, we proceed to the consideration of those which restrain the choice of occupations. These may be called simply restrictive punishments, and consist in a simple prohibition of performing certain acts.
Upon this occasion we may recur to a distinction already explained, which exists between restraint and punishment. The Civil Code and Police Code are full of restraints, which are not punishments. Certain individuals are prohibited from selling poison. Innkeepers are prohibited from keeping their houses open after a certain hour. Persons are prohibited from exercising the professions of medicine or of the law, without having passed through certain examinations.
Simply restrictive punishments consist in the preventing an individual from enjoying a common right, or a right which he possessed before. If the prohibition respects a lucrative occupation, if for example an innkeeper or a hackney-coachman is deprived of his licence, the prohibition acts as a pecuniary punishment, in its nature very inequable and unfrugal. If a man is deprived of the means of earning his subsistence, he must still be supported; the punishment therefore falls not upon the individual alone, but upon others whom it was not intended to affect.
Employments which are not lucrative may be of an agreeable nature; their variety is infinite: but there is one point in which they all agree, and which will render it unnecessary to submit them to a detailed discussion. There are none of them, or at least scarcely one, which by its deprivation furnishes a sufficient portion of evil to enable us to rely upon its effect.
As respects pleasures, the mind of man possesses a happy flexibility---one source of amusement being cut off---it endeavours to open up another, and always succeeds; a new habit is easily formed; the taste adopts itself to new habits, and suits itself to a great variety of situations. This ductility of mind, this aptitude to accommodate itself to circumstances as they change, varies much in different individuals; and it is impossible beforehand to judge, or even to guess, how long an old habit will retain its dominion, so that its privation shall continue a real punishment.
This is not the only objection---Restrictive laws are very difficult of execution: they always require a subsidiary punishment of which the effect is uncertain. If you prohibit an individual from gaming, drunkenness, dancing and music, it becomes necessary to appoint an inspector for all these things, in all places, to see that your prohibition is observed. In a word, punishments of this kind are subject to this dilemma: either the attachment to the object prohibited is very weak or very strong: if strong the prohibition will be eluded; if weak, the object desired will not be obtained.
In respect of exemplarity they are equally defective: the privations they occasion are not of a nature to be generally known, or if known to produce a strong effect upon the imagination: the misery they produce rankles in the mind; but is completely hidden from the public eye.
These are some of the circumstances which have reduced the employment of these punishments within so narrow a compass: they are too uncertain in their effects, and too easily eluded, to allow of their use, as the sanction to a general law. It is true that if Judges were acquainted with the characters and circumstances of individuals, they might avail themselves of them with good effect; but this knowledge can scarcely ever be expected.
This species of punishment is well suited to domestic government. There is no pleasure which a parent or teacher cannot employ as a reward, by permitting its enjoyment, or convert into a source of punishment, by restricting its use.
But though restraints of this nature, that is to say, prohibition of agreeable occupation, do not alone form effective punishments, there is one case in which they may be usefully employed in addition to some other punishment---analogy recommends such employment of them. Has an offence been committed at some public exhibition, it may be well to prohibit the delinquent from attending such public exhibitions for a time.
Among simply restrictive punishments, there is one of which a few examples are found, and which has not received a name: I have called it banishment from the presence. It consists in an obligation imposed upon the offender immediately to leave the place in which he meets with the offended party. The simple presence of the one is a signal for the departure of the other. If Silius, the party injured, enters a ball or concert room, a public assembly or public walk---Titius is bound instantly to leave the same. This punishment appears admirably well suited for cases of personal insult, attacks upon honour, and calumnies, in a word---in all crimes which render the presence of the offender particularly disagreeable and mortifying to the party offended.
In the employment of this punishment care must be taken that power be not given to the party injured to banish the offender from places in which he is carrying on his habitual operations, or where his presence may be necessary for the discharge of any particular duty. Hence it will, in many cases, be found indispensable to make exceptions in respect of churches, courts of justice, markets, and political assemblies.
Instances in which this mode of punishment has been employed may be found in the decrees of the French Parliaments. It will be sufficient to mention one instance. A man of the name of Aujay having insulted a lady of rank in the most gross manner, among other punishments, he was ordered, under pain of corporal punishment, to retire immediately from every place at which this lady might happen to be present.[1]
In the `Intrigues of the Cabinet' may be seen the account of a quarrel between Madame de Montbazon and the Princess de Condé, in the course of which the former was guilty of very gross insults towards the Princess. The Queen, Ann of Austria, ordered that Madame Montbazon should retire from every place at which the Princess was present. [2]
Under the English law there are various instances in which, though not under the name of punishment, restrictions are imposed upon certain classes of persons. Catholics were formerly not allowed to exercise either the profession of the law or that of medicine. Persons refusing to take the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England were excluded from all public offices.
Such was the law: the practice was always to otherwise: in point of fact, a very large proportion of offices, civil and military, were filled by persons who had never taken the oaths required, but who were protected from the penalties to which they would otherwise have been subjected by an annual bill of indemnity. In point of right, the security thus afforded was a precarious one, but the uninterrupted practice of nearly a century left little room for apprehension on the part of the persons interested.
The restrictions here in question were not designed to operate as punishments; they were originally imposed with a view of avoiding the danger which, it was apprehended, might be incurred by vesting in the hands of persons of certain religious persuasions, situations of public trust. This, at least, was the avowed political reason: the true cause of the exclusion was however religious animosity: they were acts of antipathy.
But these were not the only motives: self-interest had its share in producing the exclusion. Exclude one set of persons, and you confer a benefit on another set: those to whom the right is reserved have to contend with a smaller number of competitors, and their prospect of gain is increased: these restrictive laws, originating in religious hatred, were afterwards maintained by injustice; the persecution began by misguided bigotry, was persisted in long after the original inducement had been forgotten, from the most sordid injustice. This is the short history of the persecutions in Ireland. For the benefit of the Protestants, the restrictive laws against the Catholics were kept in force: out of eight millions of inhabitants, a selection was made of one million, on whom were conferred all offices of power or of profit. In this state of things, whilst privileges are, by the continuance of the persecuting laws, placed in the hands of the persecutors, the procuring their abolition may be expected to be attended with no small difficulty. The true motive---the sordid one---will long be concealed under the mask of religion.
Though it may be said that these restrictions are not designed to operate as punishments, and that, in the making of this general law, no particular individual was aimed at, yet there results from it a distinction injurious to the particular class of persons affected by it---necessarily injurious, since the continuance of the law can be justified only by supposing them to be dangerous and disloyal. Such laws form a nucleus around which public prejudice collects; and the legislator, by acquiescing in these transient jealousies, strengthens them, and renders them permanent. They are the remnants of a disease which has been universal, and which, after its cure, has left behind it deep and lasting scars.