tion is made thereby in the law on the subject as generally understood in modern times. (See their report ante p. 153.) An exception, however, as to the distinction between murder and manslaughter, and they doubt if it is one, is contained in what is reproduced, post, in s-s. 4 of 8. 229, as to the killing of an officer of justice making an arrest.

Another exception is contained in what is s-s. 2 of that same s. 229, post, which the commissioners give as altering the rule that words can never amount to a provocation sufficient to reduce a killing from murder to manslaughter. (There are cases to the contrary.) See ante, pp. 159, et seq.

Section 237 post, is also an alteration of the law as to aiders and abettors to suicide. It is also not now law, though the Imperial Commissioners do not notice it specially as an alteration, that the killing of any one in the attempt to commit any felony is murder. This part of the law is modified by s. 228, post, and restricted to the killing of any one, whether the offender means or not death to ensue, or knows or not that death is likely to ensue, for the purpose of facilitating the commission of the offence (whether this offence has actually been committed or not) either of treason and the other offences provided for in ss. 65 to 78, or of piracy as provided for in ss. 127, 128, 129, or of escape or rescue from prison or lawful custody, or of resisting lawful apprehension, or of murder, or of rape, or of forcible abduction, or of robbery, or of burglary, or of arson, or for the purpose of facilitating the flight of an offender upon the commission or attempted commission of any of the aforesaid offences; to constitute murder in such cases, however, the killing, though not intentional, must result from an act done with intention to inflict grievous bodily harm. for the purposes aforesaid: (see under s. 241, post, and R. v. Martin, 8 Q. B. D. 54; R. v. Clarence, 22 Q. B. D. 23, Warb. Lead. Cas. 130, as to what constitutes to inflict grievous bodily harm). To cause death by administering any stupefying or overpowering thing, or wilfully stopping the

breath of any one for the purpose of facilitating the commission of any of the above specified offences, or of facilitating the flight of an offender upon the commission or attempted commission of any of the said offences, is also murder under the provisions of s. 228. The other cases where homicide constitutes murder are specified in s. 227. All other criminal homicides constitute manslaughter: ss. 220, 223, 224, 225, 226, 229, 230; see annotation, pages 156, et seq., ante.

PROCURING DEATH BY FALSE EVIDENCE.

221. Procuring by false evidence the conviction and death of any person by the sentence of the law shall not be deemed to be homicide.

This settles a point upon which some doubt has at times been thrown by some who, according to Foster, viewed the question "rather as divines and casuists than as lawyers": Fost. 132. Lord Coke said, "It is not holden for murder at this day": 3 Inst. 48. A special punishment for perjury in such a case is now provided for by section 146, ante.

DEATH WITHIN A YEAR AND A DAY.

222. No one is criminally responsible for the killing of another unless the death take place within a year and a day of the cause of death. The period of a year and a day shall be reckoned inclusive of the day on which the last unlawful act contributing to the cause of death took place. Where the cause of death is an omission to fulfil a legal duty the period shall be reckoned inclusive of the day on which such omission ceased. Where death is in part caused by an unlawful act and in part by an omission, the period shall be reckoned inclusive of the day on which the last unlawful act took place or the omission ceased, whichever happened last.

197.

"This is the existing law ": Imp. Comm. Rep.; 4 Blacks.

KILLING BY INFLUENCE ON THE MIND.

223. No one is criminally responsible for the killing of another by any influence on the mind alone, nor for the killing of another by any disorder or disease arising from such influence, save in either case by wilfully frightening a child or sick person.

"This (the words in italics) obviates a possible doubt": Imp. Comm. Rep.; see 1 Hale, 428. The only difficulty is to prove the connection of the act with the result. It is not quite clear upon what principle this section limits to

the killing of a child, or a sick person the culpability of killing by fright.

In R. v. Towers, 12 Cox, 530, a man was convicted of manslaughter for frightening a child to death. In R. v. Dugal, 4 Q. L. R. 350, a man in Quebec was convicted of manslaughter upon evidence of death from syncope caused by threats of personal violence and assault without battery on the deceased. If magnetism and hypnotism become more commonly practiced, the law of this section may have to be altered.

ACCELERATION OF DEATH.

224. Every one who, by any act or omission, causes the death of another kills that person, although the effect of the bodily injury caused to such other person be merely to accelerate his death while labouring under some disorder or disease arising from some other cause.

This is a well recognized rule, and a common sense one. No one has the right to shorten the life of another. A contrary rule, it is obvious, would lead to singular consequences. See 1 Hale, 428; R. v. Martin, 5 C. & P. 128.

THAT DEATH MIGHT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED NO EXCUSE.

225. Every one who, by any act or omission, causes the death of another kills that person, although death from that cause might have been prevented by resorting to proper means.

That is common law.

A. injures B.'s finger. B. is advised by a surgeon to allow it to be amputated, but he refuses to do so, and dies of lockjaw. A. has killed B. When a wound, not in itself mortal, turns to a gangrene or fever, from neglect or want of proper applications, the party by whom the wound was given is guilty of a culpable homicide, murder or manslaughter, according to circumstances. The wound being the cause of the gangrene or fever is the immediate cause of death, causa causati.

TREATMENT OF INJURY CAUSING DEATH.

226. Every one who causes a bodily injury, which is of itself of a danger. ous nature to any person, from which death results kills that person, although the immediate cause of death be treatment proper or improper applied in good faith.

CRIM. LAW-14

That is common law. If one wounds another, and competent surgeons perform with ordinary skill an operation to cure the wound, which operation they in good faith think necessary but which results in death, this is a killing by the party who inflicted the wound, though the surgeons were mistaken as to the necessity of the operation, but if the surgeons had acted from bad faith, or had been guilty of negligence in the operation, the party who inflicted the wound is not guilty: see R. v. Pym, 1 Cox, 339, Warb. Lead. Cas. 105, and cases there cited.

PART XVIII.

MURDER, MANSLAUGHTER, ETC.

MURDER-DEFINITION.

227. Culpable homicide is murder in each of the following cases:

(a) If the offender means to cause the death of the person killed; (b) If the offender means to cause to the person killed any bodily injury which is known to the offender to be likely to cause death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not;

(c) If the offender means to cause death or, being so reckless as aforesaid, means to cause such bodily injury as aforesaid to one person, and by accident or mistake kills another person, though he does not mean to hurt the person killed;

(d) If the offender, for any unlawful object, does an act which he knows or ought to have known to be likely to cause death, and thereby kills any person, though he may have desired that his object should be effected without hurting any one.

MURDER FURTHER DEFINED.

228. Culpable homicide is also murder in each of the following cases whether the offender means or not death to ensue, or knows or not that death is likely to ensue :

(a) If he means to inflict grievous bodily injury for the purpose of facilitating the commission of any of the offences in this section mentioned, or the

flight of the offender upon the commission or attempted commission thereof, and death ensues from such injury; or

(b) If he administers any stupefying or overpowering thing for either of the purposes aforesaid, and death ensues from the effects thereof; or

(c) If he by any means wilfully stops the breath of any person for either of the purposes aforesaid, and death ensues from such stopping of the breath.

2. The following are the offences in this section referred to :--Treason and the other offences mentioned in Part IV. of this Act, piracy and offences. deemed to be piracy, escape or rescue from prison or lawful custody, resisting lawful apprehension, murder, rape, forcible abduction, robbery, burglary,

arson.

See R. v. Serné, 16 Cox, 311, Warb. Lead. Cas. 108, and remarks under s. 220, ante; also R. v. Handley, 13 Cox, 79. The shooting by A. at a fowl to steal it, by which B. is accidentally killed is clearly not now murder. A. criminally sets a house on fire not knowing that there is any one in it, there was, however, some one in it who perishes in the fire, A. will not now be guilty of murder.

PROVOCATION.

229. Culpable homicide, which would otherwise be murder, may be reduced to manslaughter if the person who causes death does so in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation.

2. Any wrongful act or insult, of such a nature as to be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control, may be provocation if the offender acts upon it on the sudden, and before there has been time for his. passion to cool.

3. Whether or not any particular wrongful act or insult amounts to provocation, and whether or not the person provoked was actually deprived of the power of self-control by the provocation which he received, shall be questions of fact. No one shall be held to give provocation to another by doing that which he had a legal right to do, or by doing anything which the offender incited him to do in order to provide the offender with an excuse for killing or doing bodily harm to any person.

4. An arrest shall not necessarily reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter because the arrest was illegal, but if the illegality was known to the offender it may be evidence of provocation.

See R. v. Fisher, Warb Lead. Cas. 112, and cases there cited, and ss. 45, 46, 220 ante; also a note to R. v. Allen, in appendix, Stephen's Cr. L. Art. 225.

MANSLAUGHTER.

230. Culpable homicide, not amounting to murder, is manslaughter.