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OF CHURCHES, &c.-"If any person unlawfully and maliciously sets fire to any church, chapel or meeting-house for the exercise of any mode or form of religious worship whatever; or unlawfully and maliciously sets fire to any house, stable, coach-house, outhouse, warehouse, office, shop, mill, malthouse, hop-oast, barn, or granary, or to any building or erection used in carrying on any trade or manufacture, or any branch thereof, whether the same or any of them, respectively, be then in the possession of the offender, or in the possession of any other person, such offender shall be guilty of felony, and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for the term of his natural life, or for any term not less than two years, or be imprisoned in any other prison or place of confinement for any term less than two years." (Ib. s. 4.)

OF SCHOOL HOUSES, &c.-"If any person unlawfully and maliciously sets fire to any school-house, lecture-room, seminary of learning, college or building used for the purpose of education, or to any village, town or city hall, or to any steam or fire engine-house or toll-booth, or to any building used or employed as a mechanics' institute, or as a public library, or to any hall or building used by any body or society of persons, by whatever name or designation they may be known, and whether they are associated together for educational, philanthropic, or benevolent purposes, or for any other lawful purpose, or to any museum or repository of curiosities, such offender shall be guilty of felony, and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for the term of his natural life, or for any term not less than two years, or be imprisoned in any other

inhabited by, any other person, are endangered thereby, though there be no actual burning; but it is not punishable as arson to burn one's own house if it be entirely isolated and no person be within, even though the intent be thereby to defraud an insurance company. A tenant in possession is, in this offence, considered to be the owner of the house he occupies, and therefore cannot be indicted for arson; except only in such cases where a man may be indicted for burning his own house. But a mere residence without any interest in a house will not prevent its being considered the house of another: as, where a man sets fire to a house in which he resides without paying rent, he may be properly convicted In the term house is included not only the dwelling-house, but all outhouses, which are parcel thereof, though not adjoining to or under the same roof, such as barns, stables, &c. The setting fire to an unfinished house, though intended for a residence, does not constitute a felony. A gaol is considered a house within the statute.

of arson.

prison or place of confinement for any term less than two years, and it shall not be necessary to allege or set out in the indictment the name of the owner of any such building." (Ib. s. 6.)

OF SHIPS."If any person unlawfully and maliciously sets fire to, casts away, or in any wise destroys any ship or vessel, either with intent to murder any person, or whereby the life of any person is endangered, such offender shall be guilty of felony, and shall suffer death.” (Ib. s. 7.)

"If any person unlawfully and maliciously sets fire to, or in any wise destroys any ship or vessel, whether the same be completed or in an unfinished state, or unlawfully and maliciously sets fire to, casts away or in any wise destroys any ship or vessel, with intent thereby to prejudice any owner or part owner of such ship or vessel, or of any goods on board the same, or the underwriter of any policy of insurance upon such ship or vessel, or on the freight thereof, or upon any goods on board the same, such offender shall be guilty of felony, and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for the term of his natural life, or for any other term not less than two years, or be imprisoned in any other prison or place of confinement for any term less than two years." (Ib. s. 9.)

OF HAYSTACKS, &c. "If any person unlawfully and maliciously sets fire to any stack of corn, grain, pulse, straw, hay, peat, coal, charcoal or wood, or any steer of wood, such offender shall be guilty of felony, and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for any term not more than seven years, nor less than two years, or be imprisoned in any prison or place of confinement for any term less than two years.' (Ib. s. 12.)

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ATTEMPTS TO BURN.-"If any person unlawfully and maliciously by any overt act attempts to set fire to any building or vessel, or to any stack, or to any vegetable produce of such kind, and with such intent that if the offence were complete the offender would be guilty of felony, and liable to be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for any term not less than two years, he shall, although such building, vessel, stack or vegetable produce be not actually set on fire, be guilty of felony,

and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for any term not exceeding seven years, nor less than two years, or be imprisoned in any common gaol for any term less than two years.' (Ib. s. 13.)

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OF RAILWAY BUILDINGS. "If any person wilfully and maliciously sets fire to any station-house, engine-house, warehouse, or other building belonging or appertaining to any railway, lock, canal, or other navigation, or to any goods or chattels being in any building, the setting fire to which is made felony by this or any other Act of Parliament, such offender shall be guilty of felony, and shall be punished as in the last preceding section is mentioned."† (Ib. s. 32.)

OF DOCKYARDS, &c.-"If any person within Upper Canada wilfully and maliciously sets on fire, or burns or otherwise destroys, or causes to be set on fire or burnt or otherwise destroyed, or aids, procures, abets or assists in the setting on fire or burning, or otherwise destroying, any of Her Majesty's ships or vessels of war, whether on float or building or begun to be built in any of Her Majesty's dockyards, or building or repairing by contract in any private yard for the use of Her Majesty, or any of Her Majesty's arsenals, magazines, dockyards, rope yards, victualling offices, or any of the buildings erected thereon or belonging thereto, or any timber or materials there placed for building, repairing or fitting out of ships or vessels, or any of Her Majesty's military, naval or victualling stores, or other ammunition of war, or any place or places where any such military, naval or victualling stores or other ammunition of war is or are kept, placed or deposited, such offender is guilty of felony, and shall suffer death." (Con. Stat. U. C. c. 97, s. 13.)

*Offences under this section are not triable at Quarter Sessions or Recorder's Court.

The punishment prescribed is imprisonment in the Penitentiary for not less than three nor more than seven years.

ASSAULT.

Assaults are usually divided into two classes: common and aggravated.

I. COMMON ASSAULT is described by Russell to be an attempt or offer with force or violence to do a corporal injury to another, and may consist of an act tending to such injury, accompanied by circumstances denoting an intent, coupled with present ability, to use violence against the person.

What amounts to an Assault.-To constitute an assault, it is not necessary that there should be a direct attempt at violence.

If a person presents a gun or pistol, purporting to be a loaded gun or pistol, so near as to produce danger to life or limb were the gun or pistol to go off, it is an assault, though the gun or pistol be not loaded.

There may be an assault by exposing a child, or a person under the control of the assaulting party, to the cold. Forcible confinement, or false imprisonment, is an assault. A master taking improper liberties with a female scholar, without her consent, though she does not resist, is guilty of an assault. So a medical practitioner who had sexual intercourse with a young girl under sixteen, ignorant of the nature of the act, though she made no resistance, was convicted of assault. If two parties go out to strike one another, and do so, it is an assault in both, and it is no matter which strikes the first blow.

A battery is when an injury is actually committed in an angry, revengeful, spiteful, rude or insolent manner. One charged with assault and battery may be convicted of the assault and yet acquitted of the battery; but every battery includes an assault: therefore, on an indictment where the assault is ill laid, it will be sufficient to prove the battery. The injury need not be effected directly by the hand of the party. Thus, encouraging a dog to bite, riding over a person .with a horse, or injuring persons in a carriage by wilfully driving against or upsetting it, constitutes an assault. So, where a person threw a lighted squib in a market-place, which, being tossed from hand to hand, at last put out the plaintiff's

eye, the party who first threw it was held guilty of an assault. Pushing a drunken man against another person, so as to injure him, is also an assault.

*

What does not amount to an Assault.-1. No mere words constitute an assault. 2. Accidentally striking or injuring, does not make an assault. An injury received in a lawful and amicable contest, as with cudgels, &c., by consent, will not amount to a battery. 3. Lawful chastisement, as of a child by its father, or a scholar by the teacher, is no assault. But it is necessary that the chastisement should be reasonable. 4. A blow or other violence made necessary for self-defence by the violence of another, is no battery. But if the violence used be more than necessary to repel the assault, the party thus becomes in his turn the assailant, and may be convicted of an assault. 5. A husband may justify an assault in defence of his wife, a parent of his child, a master of his servant; or vice versa, a wife in defence of her husband, &c. 6. Interference to prevent a breach of the peace, or the commission of a felony, justifies a battery. 7. Defence of possession justifies a battery. So that where a man enters an enclosure, or lays hands on the goods of another, the owner of the property should first request the trespasser to depart or desist, and if he refuses, gently attempt to remove him, and if he resist with force, then force may be used in return, sufficient to expel him. But the owner would not be justified in assaulting in the first instance, unless the trespass were accompanied with violence. 8. A constable or other peace officer, or a sheriff's officer, may

* In a late case which came before the sessions for York and Peel, it came out in evidence, upon the trial of the prisoner, that the constable who made the arrest beat the prisoner upon the head with a pair of handcuffs. The constable being present, the Judge, immediately upon the close of the trial, ordered the clerk to enter an order of the court, striking the name of the constable from the list of county constables.

If A. first lifts his hand, either with or without auy instrument, to strike B. it is a sufficient assault to justify B. striking A. but in such a case B. must not use a greater degree of force than is necessary, for if he do he may be convicted of an assault.

When a magistrate is making a preliminary inquiry, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there are sufficient grounds to commit a party for trial, no person has a right to be present, and consequently the magistrate may justify laying hands upon a person who refuses to leave the room where the inquiry is being made, in order to turn him out.

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