66

wound any

intent must have been to injure the person actually injured. Those words are left out in the later statute, and the words are other person." I cannot see that there could be any question, but for the case of Reg. v. Pembliton. Now, I think that that case was properly decided; but upon a ground which renders it clearly distinguishable from the present case. That is to say, the statute which was under discussion in Reg. v. Pembliton makes an unlawful injury to property punishable in a certain way. In that case the jury and the facts expressly negatived that there was any intent to injure any property at all; and the court held that, in a statute which created it an offence to injure property, there must be an intention to injure property in order to support an indictment under that statute. But for that case Mr. Croft is out of court, and I therefore think that this conviction should be sustained.

LORD ESHER, M. R. I am of the same opinion. It seems to me that the case of Reg. v. Pembliton is the only case which could be cited against a well-known principle of law. But that case shows that there was no intention to injure any property at all; therefore there was no intent to commit the crime mentioned in the Act.

BOWEN, L. J. I am also of opinion that this conviction should be affirmed. It is quite clear that this offence was committed without any malice in the mind of the prisoner, and that he had no intention of wounding Ellen Rolston. The only difficulty that arises is from Reg. v. Pembliton, which was a case under an Act of Parliament which does not deal with all malice in general, but with malice towards property; and all that case holds is, that though the prisoner would have been guilty of acting maliciously within the common law meaning of the term, still he was not guilty of acting maliciously within the meaning of a statute which requires a malicious intent to injure property. Had the prisoner meant to strike a pane of glass, and without any reasonable expectation of doing so injured a person, it might be said that the malicious intent to injure property was not enough to sustain a prosecution under this statute. But, as the jury found that the prisoner intended to wound Chapple, I am of opinion that he acted maliciously within the meaning of this statute.

FIELD, J. I am also of opinion that this conviction must be af firmed. I think this a very important case and one of very wide application, and am very glad that it has come before this court, and has been carefully considered and decided so that there may be no doubt about the matter.

MANISTY, J. I do not propose to add more than a few words. The facts in this case raise an exceedingly important question, because the man Chapple, who was intended to be struck, was standing close by the woman who was wounded, and who was talking to him; and the prisoner intending to strike Chapple with the belt did strike him, but the belt bounded off and struck Ellen Rolston. It seems to me that the first and second findings of the jury justify the conviction, because

they are in these terms: "The jury found that the blow was unlawful and malicious, and that it did in fact wound Ellen Rolston;" and that being so, I think that the third finding does not entitle the prisoner to an acquittal. It is trne he did not intend to strike Ellen Rolston, but he did intend to strike Chapple, and in doing so wounded Ellen Rolston; therefore I think that the third finding is quite immaterial, and this conviction should be affirmed.1

Conviction affirmed.

REX v. KNIGHT.

CROWN CASE RESERVED. 1782.

[Reported 2 East, Pleas of the Crown, 510.]

THE prisoners were indicted for feloniously and burglariously breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Mary Snelling at East Grinstead, in the night of November 14, 1781, with intent to steal the goods of Leonard Hawkins, then and there being in the said dwelling-house. It appeared that L. Hawkins, being an excise officer, had seized seventeen bags of tea on the same month at a Mrs. Tilt's, in a shop entered in the name of Smith, as being there without a legal permit, and had removed the same to Mrs. Snelling's at East Grinstead, where Hawkins lodged. The tea, the witnesses said, they supposed to belong to Smith; and that on the night of November 14 the prisoners and divers other persons broke open the house of Mary Snelling with intent to take this tea. It was not proved that Smith was in company with them; but the witnesses swore that they supposed the fact was committed either in company with or by the procurement of Smith. The jury were directed to find the prisoners guilty, on the point being reserved; and being also directed to find as a fact with what intent the prisoners broke and entered the house, they found that they intended to take the goods on the behalf of Smith. In Easter term following all the judges held that the indictment was not supported, there being no intention to steal, however outrageous the behavior of the prisoners was in thus endeavoring to get back the goods for Smith."

1 See acc. (wounding with intent to do bodily harm) Reg. v. Lynch, 1 Cox C. C. 361; Reg. v. Stofford, 11 Cox C. C. 643; (with intent to kill) Reg. v. Smith, 7 Cox C. C. 51.-ED.

INDICTMENT for manslaughter. It appeared that the defendant, master of an American whale ship, shot and killed a man on the deck of another vessel which lay alongside; both vessels lay at the time in a harbor of one of the Society Islands.1

STORY, J. We are of opinion that, under the circumstances established in evidence, there is no jurisdiction in this cause.

What we found ourselves upon in this case is, that the offence, if any, was committed, not on board of the American ship "Rose," but on board of a foreign schooner belonging to inhabitants of the Society Islands, and, of course, under the territorial government of the king of the Society Islands, with which kingdom we have trade and friendly intercourse, and which our government may be presumed (since we have a consul there) to recognize as entitled to the rights and sovereignty of an independent nation, and of course entitled to try offences committed within its territorial jurisdiction. I say the offence was committed on board of the schooner; for although the gun was fired from the ship "Rose," the shot took effect and the death hap pened on board of the schooner; and the act was, in contemplation of law, done where the shot took effect. So the law was settled in the case of Rex v. Coombs, 1 Leach Cr. Cas. 432, where a person on the high seas was killed by a shot fired by a person on shore, and the offence was held to be committed on the high seas, and to be within the Admiralty jurisdiction. Of offences committed on the high seas on board of foreign vessels (not being a piratical vessel), but belonging to persons under the acknowledged government of a foreign country, this court has no jurisdiction under the Act of 1790, ch. 36, § 12. That was the

1 This short statement of facts has been substituted for that contained in the report.

doctrine of the Supreme Court in United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. R. 610, and United States v. Klintock, 5 Wheat. R. 144, and United States v. Holmes, 5 Wheat. R. 412; applied, it is true, to another class of cases, but in its scope embracing the present. We lay no stress on the fact that the deceased was a foreigner. Our judgment would be the same if he had been an American citizen. We decide the case wholly on the ground that the schooner was a foreign vessel belonging to foreigners, and at the time under the acknowledged jurisdiction of a foreign government. We think that under such circumstances the jurisdiction over the offence belonged to the foreign government, and not to the courts of the United States under the Act of Congress. The jury immediately returned a verdict of not guilty.

STATE v. GESSERT.

SUPREME COURT OF MINNESOTA. 1875.

[Reported 21 Minnesota, 369.]

BERRY, J. The indictment in this case was found by a grand jury of Washington County, and charges the defendant with committing the crime of murder, by feloniously, &c., inflicting upon David Savazyo, on Aug. 28, 1874, in said county, a stab and wound, of which, upon the same day, Savazyo died in the county of Pierce, and State of Wisconsin. The question in the case is whether the indictment charges the commission of an offence in the county of Washington. It is for his acts that defendant is responsible. They constitute his offence. The place where they are committed must be the place where his offence is committed, and therefore the place where he should be indicted and tried. In this instance the acts with which defendant is charged, to wit, the stabbing and wounding, were committed in Washington County. The death which ensued in Pierce County, though it went to characterize the acts committed in Washington County, was not an act of defendant committed in Wisconsin, but the consequence of his acts committed in Washington County, against the peace and dignity of the State of Minnesota. We are therefore of opinion that the indictment charges the commission of the crime of murder in Washington County, and, upon the questions certified to this court by the court below, that the demurrer to the indictment should be overruled. Riley v. State, 9 Humph. 646; Com. v. Parker, 2 Pick. 550, 559; 1 East, P. C. c. 5, § 128; Rex v. Burdett, 4 B. & Ald. 95, 173; Grosvenor v. Inhabitants, &c., 12 East, 244; People v. Gill, 6 Cal. 637; State v. Carter, 3 Dutch. 499; 1 Hale P. C. c 33; 1 Bish. Cr. Law, § 83; 1 Bish. Cr. Proc. § 67; 2 Wharton Cr. Law, § 1052.1

1 Acc. Green v. State, 66 Ala. 40; U. S. v. Guiteau, 1 Mack. 498. See also the following cases for decision upon the locality of crime: Allison v. Com., 83 Ky. 254 (receiving stolen goods); People v. Arnold, 46 Mich. 268 (conspiracy); Lovelace v State, 12 Lea, 721 (embezzlement). — ED.

REGINA v. ARMSTRONG.

LIVERPOOL ASSIZES. 1875.

[Reported 13 Cox C. C. 184.]

JOHN ARMSTRONG was charged with the wilful murder of Lawrence Harrington, on board the hulk Kent, in the Bonny River, Africa, on the 4th of May, 1875.1 . .

It was proved in evidence that the Kent had been a three-masted sailing ship, of 1324 tons register, and was registered as a British ship, though not British built. That she had for eighteen months at least been dismasted, and employed as a floating depôt or receiving ship on the Bonny Station for a line of commercial steamers trading between Liverpool and that port; that she swung with the tide and floated in the tideway of the river, and that she hoisted the British ensign at the peak. The general appointments as a ship, boats, etc., remained; the masts had been cut down to form a support for an awning or house on deck, but the rigging had been taken away. The prisoner was mate of the Kent, and in the evening of the 4th day of May he stealthily approached the captain as he was standing near the stern and leaning over the taffrail of the ship, and took hold of him by the collar of his coat and the seat of his trousers and flung him overboard. The body of the captain in falling struck the quarter rail or gallery of the Kent, and bounded off; and the back of his head, as was deposed by one witness, then struck the gunwale of a boat that was lying moored on the port side, leaving marks of blood. The body then fell into the water, and was never seen again, though five or six boats were immediately put out in search. The river was running out very rapidly, at the rate of four to five knots an hour. It was at this point six or seven miles broad, and the nearest ship was probably a thousand yards dis-' tant. The station of the ship was at about seven miles from the bar, one and a half miles from the easterly or southern shore, and more than five from the northern shore. One of the witnesses said the river was infested with sharks, and that bathing was forbidden on that account, but admitted in cross-examination he had never seen any.

Cottingham, for the prisoner, submitted . . . that the murder, if murder it were, was not committed on board the Kent, and was not a completed criminal act on board that ship. That at the utmost there had only been an assault on board the ship, and that the ultimate consequence of the act, where it was only a possible consequence, could not be assumed to have occurred on board the ship. . . .

HIS LORDSHIP [ARCHIBALD, J.] overruled all the objections, and pointed out that there was abundant primâ facie evidence that the ship was a British ship, and that this had not been rebutted; that the crime

1 Only so much of the case as discusses the question of jurisdiction is given. — ED.