FRAUD ON LAW FOR FRAUD ON LAW

Let us begin with talion proper. For the recipient of a hurt, or whoever acts on his behalf, to inflict an identical one on the culprit is a fairly old and widespread response. In Proverbs, it is disapproved of: 'Say not, I will do so to him as he has done to me'.' Folk-literature knows the coy bride pleading a headache, sorry for it when, a little later in the proceedings, the groom profers the same excuse.2 The mere attempt to injure may produce this tit for tat, as in the fable of the wolf who tells a sick lion that the fox scorns him; but the latter overhears this and convinces the lion that, to be cured, he must wrap himself in the wolf's skin-which duly happens.3 Often the intended victim uses the attempter's own weapon to effect requital. Hansel and Gretel push the witch into the kettle with boiling water wherein she meant to cook them. 'Eat spiritual food', the feasting monks exhort a colleague who wants to join in though previously, when they worked hard in field and stable, he reproved them for thinking of bodily nourishment.' Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, travelling with Hamlet, carry a letter from the Danish king to the English one asking him to rid him of the prince. The latter manages to substitute a request for the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: they are 'hoist with their own petard'.5 The part played by the idea in law is well known. One of the ordinances directly after the flood reads, 'Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed',6 and a Mosaic one proclaims 'Life for life, eye for eye'.' Similar provisions are