Thus in Afghanistan the elders make a show of handing over the criminal to his accusers, who must, however, comply strictly with the wishes of the assembly; whilst in Samoa the offender was bound and deposited before the family "as if to signify that he lay at their mercy," and the chief saw to the rest.

Finally, the state, in the person of its executive officers, both convicts and executes.
When the state is represented by a single ruler, crime tends to become an offence against "the king's peace"-- or, in the language of Roman law, against his "majesty." Henceforward, the easy-going system of getting off with a fine is at an end, and murder is punished with the utmost sternness.

In such a state as Dahomey, in the old days of independence, there may have been a good deal of barbarity displayed in the administration of justice, but at any rate human life was no less effectively protected by the law than it was, say, in mediaeval Europe.
* * * * * The evolution of the punishment of murder affords the typical instance of the development of a legal sanction in primitive society.

Other forms, however, of the forcible repression of wrong-doing deserve a more or less passing notice.
Adultery is, even amongst the ruder peoples, a transgression that is reckoned only a degree less grave than manslaughter; especially as manslaughter is a usual consequence of it, quarrels about women constituting one of the chief sources of trouble in the savage world.
With a single interesting exception, the stages in the development of the law against adultery are exactly the same as in the case already examined.

Whole kins fight about it.