人情与法理:兼论民国时期民众的法律意识——以1930年苏州救火汽车伤人事件为中心

Human Feelings and Legal: On the Legal Consciousness of the Public in the Period of Republic of China——An Investigation on the Injured Case of Suzhou Fire Car in 1930

民国十九年(1930)四月二十五日,(1)苏州阊胥盘区第八段同善救火会因试车撞死行人,首开苏州救火汽车杀人之例。事后舆论哗然,民众称其为"市虎"杀人。从各方面对此事的言论及相关部门对此事的处理结果可以看出,虽然法理在近代以来的刑事案件处理中很重要,但苏州民众在对待案件时,依然看重人情,在法律之外仍沿袭人情的因素。这一定程度上说明,自近代以来民众被法律疏远后,民间自有一套行之有效的规则,而这种规则乃源于中国的慈善传统。正是这两者的较好权衡,才使得传统以来社会朝着良性的方向发展。但也必须认识到,法律实施的效果必须在具体的地域社会历史中才能得到全息的展现,如此法律史的研究才能更好地深入下去。

On April25, 1930,Tongshan which was the eighth Fire-fighting organization of Changxupan district In Suzhou, killed a pedestrian when the staff testing the Fire truck. It was the first case of Suzhou car fire homicide.For that matter, the Public expressed their opinions, they called it ＂City Tiger＂ murder.From all of the speech and the relevant departments on the handling of the matter, we can see that, although jurisprudence was very important in the handling of criminal cases in modern times, when the Suzhou people treated their cases, they still valued humanity and followed the human factors outside the law. To some extent,we can say that Folk owned set of effective rules since they were alienated from the law in modern times. The rules originated from China＇s charitable tradition. It is because of the better trade-off between the two, the traditional society developed healthily. But we must also clearly understand that, the effect of law enforcement must be displayed in a specific local society, only in this way, the research of the law can be better to go deeper.