the second degree is a person present, aiding and abetting. The presence must be sufficiently near to give assistance. An accessary is a person not present, but concerned in some manner with the felony, either before or after its commission. Accessaries before the fact are persons absent at the time of the felony committed, who do yet procure, counsel, command, or abet another to commit a felony. Accessaries after the fact are persons who, knowing a felony to have been committed by another, receive, relieve, comfort, or assist the felon, whether such felon be principal or accessary before the fact.

We shall now give a short definition of the principal offences known to the English law.

ARSON.-This offence consists in the wilful burning of the house or outhouse of another man.

BIGAMY is, when a person being married, shall marry any other person during the life of the former husband or wife, whether such second marriage shall have taken place in England or elsewhere.

BURGLARY (at common law) is the breaking and entering, between the hours of nine at night and six in the morning, into the dwelling-house of another with intent to commit a felony therein.

CONSPIRACY is the confederacy or agreement of two or more persons to injure an individual, or do any other unlawful act or acts prejudicial to the community, or even to do a lawful act by unlawful

means.

EMBEZZLEMENT is where any clerk or servant, or any person employed for the purpose or in the capacity of a clerk or servant, receives by virtue of such employment any chattel, money, or valuable security for or in the name or on the account of his master, and refuses to account for the same.

FALSE PRETENCES is where a person by any false pretence obtains from any other person any chattel, money, or valuable security, with intent to cheat or defraud any person of the same.

FORGERY may be defined as the false making of an instrument which purports on the face of it to be good and valid for the purposes for which it was created, with a design to defraud any person or persons.

HOMICIDE is the killing another either innocently or feloniously.

LARCENY (or theft) comprises both simple larceny and larceny with aggravation, as robbery. Simple larceny consists in the taking and carrying away of the personal goods of another with intent to deprive the owner of them.

LIBEL is the malicious publication of any defamatory or contumelious matter against another in print, writing, signs, or pictures.

MANSLAUGHTER is the unlawful killing of another without malice either express or implied.

MURDER is where a person of sound memory, and of the age of discretion, unlawfully killeth another with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied.

PERJURY is the swearing wilfully, corruptly, and falsely in a matter material to the point in question, the oath being lawfully administered in some judicial proceeding.

RAPE is when a man hath carnal knowledge of a woman by force and against her will.

RECEIVING STOLEN GOODS is the receiving any money, chattel, or valuable security, knowing the same to have been stolen.

RIOT is where three or more actually do an unlawful act of violence with or without a common cause or quarrel, or even do a lawful act in a violent or tumultuous manner.

ROBBERY is the forcible taking from the person of another of goods or money to any value by violence, or putting him in fear.

SODOMY is having connection with another against the order of nature.

SUBORNATION OF PERJURY is the procuring another person to commit perjury.

CHAPTER VIII.

INDICTMENTS.

AN Indictment is defined to be a written accusation of one or more persons of a crime, presented, upon oath, by a jury of twelve or more men, termed a GRAND JURY. Until very recently all the rules of pleading with respect to a declaration were applicable to an Indictment. By a recent

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statute, 14 & 15 Vict. c. 100, the extreme niceties and refined technicalities are abolished. An Indictment now is little more than a simple statement of the offence, and such as good sense and regard for the accused alone would suggest. The first requisite in an Indictment is that it should be framed with certainty. It must contain a certain description of the crime, so that a grand jury may not find a bill for one offence and the prisoner be tried for another. The facts of the crime should be stated with as much certainty as the case will permit. Thus, in an Indictment for false pretences, it must show what the false pretences were, so that it may be seen whether they are such as come within the statute against false pretences. The court may now, on the trial of any Indictment for felony or misdemeanour, amend such variances, provided they are not material to the merits of the case, and by which the defendant cannot be prejudiced in his defence, and may either proceed with or postpone the trial to be had before the same or another jury. These amendments apply to six classes :

1. The name of any county, riding, division, city, borough, town, corporate, parish, township, or place mentioned or described in the indictment.

2. The name or description of any person or persons, or body politic or corporate, stated to be the owner or owners of any property which forms the subject of any offence charged in the indictment.

3. The name or description of any person or persons, body politic or corporate, alleged to be

injured or damaged, or intended to be injured or damaged, by the commission of the offence charged in the indictment.

4. The Christian name or surname, or both Christian name and surname, or other description of any person or persons named or described in the indictment.

5. The name or description of any matter or thing named or described in the indictment.

6. The ownership of any property named or described in the indictment.

There is no power, however, to amend the same identical particular more than once; and no amendment can be made so as to change the character of the offence.

We shall now shortly consider the different parts of an Indictment. The venue in the margin expresses the county in which the prisoner is to be put upon his trial. It was necessary formerly, after every material allegation in the body of the indictment, to aver time and place, which was signified by the words "then and there," the "there" referring to the venue in the margin; but this now is no longer necessary, as by 14 & 15 Vict. sect. 23, c. 100 the venue in the margin is sufficient, except where local description is necessary, as in the case of housebreaking for example. Immediately after the statement of the venue in the margin, the indictment proceeds to show the presentment of the jury upon oath; the words are, "The Jurors for our Lady the Queen, upon their oath, present." The name and addition of the