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PUNISHMENT (from Lat. punire, to punish, from poena, punishment, Gr. ποινή), the infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for a misdeed, i.e. the transgression of a law or command. Punishment may take forms varying from capital punishment, flogging and mutilation of the body to imprisonment, fines, and even deferred sentences which come into operation only if an offence is repeated within a specified time. The progress of civilization has resulted in a vast change alike in the theory and in the method of punishment. In primitive society punishment was left to the individuals wronged or their families, and was vindictive or retributive: in quantity and quality it would bear no special relation to the character or gravity of the offence. Gradually there would arise the idea of proportionate punishment, of which the characteristic type is the lex talionis^[1] “an eye for an eye.” The second stage was punishment by individuals under the control of the state, or community; in the third stage, with the growth of law, the state took over the primitive function and provided itself with the machinery of “justice” for the maintenance of public order. Henceforward crimes are against the state, and the exaction of punishment by the wronged individual is illegal (cf. Lynch Law). Even at this stage the vindictive or retributive character of punishment remains, but gradually, and specially after the humanist movement under thinkers like Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, new theories begin to emerge. Two chief trains of thought have combined in the condemnation of primitive theory and practice. On the one hand the retributive principle itself has been very largely superseded by the protective and the reformative; on the other punishments involving bodily pain have become objectionable to the general sense of society. Consequently corporal and even capital punishment occupy a far less prominent position, and tend everywhere to disappear. It began to be recognized also that stereotyped punishments, such as belong to penal codes, fail to take due account of the particular condition of an offence and the character and circumstances of the offender. A fixed fine, for example, operates very unequally on rich and poor.

Modern theories date from the 18th century, when the humanitarian movement began to teach the dignity of the individual and to emphasize his rationality and responsibility. The result was the reduction of punishment both in quantity and in severity, the improvement of the prison system, and the first attempts to study the psychology of crime and to distinguish between classes of criminals with a view to their improvement (see Crime; Prison; Children’s Courts; Juvenile Offenders). These latter problems are the province of criminal anthropology and criminal sociology, sciences so called because they view crime as the outcome of anthropological and social conditions. The man who breaks the law is himself a product of social evolution and cannot be regarded as solely responsible for his disposition to transgress. Habitual crime is thus to be treated as a disease. Punishment can, therefore, be justified only in so far as it (1) protects society by removing temporarily or permanently one who has injured it, or acting as a deterrent,^[2] or (2) aims at the moral regeneration of the criminal. Thus the retributive theory of punishment with its criterion of justice as an end in itself gives place to a theory which regards punishment solely as a means to an end, utilitarian or moral, according as the common advantage or the good of the criminal is sought.

PUNJAB, a province of British India, so named from the “five rivers” by which it is watered: the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, all tributaries of the Indus. Geographically the Punjab is the triangular tract of country of which the Indus and the Sutlej to their confluence form the two sides, the base being the lower Himalaya hills between those two rivers; but the British province now includes a large tract outside those boundaries. Along the northern border Himalayan ranges divide it from Kashmir and Tibet. On the west it is separated from the North-West Frontier province by the Indus, until that river reaches the border of Dera Ghazi Khan district, which is divided from Baluchistan by the Suliman range. To the south lie Sind and Rajputana, While on the east the rivers Jumna and Tons separate it from the United Provinces.

The Punjab includes two classes of territory, that belonging to the British Crown, and that in possession of 34 feudatory chiefs, almost all of Whom pay tribute. The total area of the province is 133,741 sq. m., of which 97,209 sq. m. are British territory, and the remainder belongs to native states. The British territory is divided into 29 districts, Political Divisions. grouped under the five divisions of Delhi, Lahore, Jullundur, Rawalpindi and Multan; while the native states Vary in size from Bahawalpur, with an area of 15,000 sq. m., to the tiny state of Darkoti, with an area of 8 sq. m. and a total population of 518 souls. They may be grouped under three main heads: the Phulkian states of Patiala, Jind and Nabha and the Sikh state of Kapurthala, occupying the centre of the eastern plains; the Mahommedan state of Bahawalpur between the Sutlej and the Rajputana desert; and the hill states, among the Punjab Himalayas held by ancient Rajput families, including Chamba, Mandi, Suket, Sirmur and the Simla states.

Physical Features.—The mountain regions of the Punjab fall under four separate groups. To the north-east of the province lies the Himalayan system, with the fringing range of the Siwaliks at its foot. In the south-eastern corner the Aravalli system sends out insignificant outliers, which run across Gurgaon and Delhi districts and strike the Jumna at Delhi. The lower portion of the Western frontier is constituted by the great Suliman chain; while the north-western districts of the province are traversed by the hill system known as the Salt range. The mountain system of the Himalayas, so far as it concerns the Punjab, consists primarily of three great ranges running in a generally north-westerly direction from the head-waters of the Sutlej to the Indus: the Western Himalayas or Zanskar or Bara Lacha range, the mid-Himalayas or Pir Panjal range, and the outer or sub-Himalayas. From these three great ranges spring numerous minor ranges, as ribs from a backbone, the whole forming a confused system of mountain chains and valleys, the breadth of which is some 90 m. at its eastern extremity from Lahul to the Siwaliks of Hoshiarpur, and some 150 m. measured at its western extremity across Kashmir.

The “five rivers” of the Punjab are each of large volume; but, on account of the great width of sandy channel in their passage through the plains, their changing courses, and shifting shoals, they are of no value for steam navigation, though they all support a considerable boat-traffic. Of recent years most of them have been utilized The Five Rivers. for purposes of irrigation, and have turned the sandy desert of