CHAPTER V. ACTS ENDANGERING HUMAN LIFE. THE common law made very scanty provision for the repression of acts which merely endangered human life. If no fatal consequences followed and the act in question did not amount to either robbery or rape, the only remedy was an indictment for battery or assault-misdemeanours, which as a rule were very lightly punished. But many statutes have now been passed to remedy this omission. 1. Attempt to Murder. Every attempt to commit a crime is a misdemeanour at common law; but an attempt to murder has been made felony by statute, whether any bodily injury be effected or not. It is punishable with penal servitude for life and cannot, therefore, be tried at Quarter Sessions. The statute gives as examples several kinds of acts which, if done with intent to murder, amount to an attempt to murder, such as administering poison, wounding or causing grievous bodily harm, blowing up buildings, setting ships on fire, or casting them adrift. Further, by section 14 it is a felony punishable with penal servitude for life to unlawfully and maliciously attempt to administer or attempt to cause to be administered to any person any poison or other noxious thing with intent to commit murder. Shooting at a person or attempting to shoot "by drawing a trigger or in any other manner," or attempting to drown, suffocate or strangle any person with intent to commit murder, is punished with equal severity. In the case of wounding with intent to murder, the 1 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, ss. 11-15. B.C.L. 20 prosecution must satisfy the jury that the prisoner's weapon had cut through both skins of the prosecutor's body; else the injury does not in law amount to a wound. If the intent to murder be not proved, the prisoner may be convicted of unlawfully and maliciously wounding.1 It is sometimes difficult to say how many of the series of acts, which constitute the full offence of murder, must be gone through in order that the would-be murderer should be guilty of an attempt. If A. resolves to murder B., buys a revolver, loads it and lies in wait for him, he has so far committed no crime; he has merely given evidence of a murderous intention. So if when B. approaches A. raises his revolver and prepares to take aim at him, this, it is submitted, would not amount to an attempt. But if he places his finger on the trigger and deliberately takes aim at B. and is then seized from behind, he has probably committed an attempt, although he never fired; he will undoubtedly have done so, if he pulls the trigger and the bullet passes over B.'s head. Again, by section 18 of the same Act it is provided that whoever shall unlawfully and maliciously . . . by drawing a trigger or in any other manner attempt to discharge any kind of loaded arms at any person with intent to maim, disfigure or disable any person or to do some other grievous bodily harm to any person, or with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of any person, shall be guilty of felony," and liable to penal servitude for life. Thus where a man, after having previously threatened to take his mother's life, came in one evening, immediately produced a six-chambered revolver with two chambers loaded, pointed it at his mother, saying, “I will give you this," and was seen to fumble about for the trigger, but was then seized by the wrists by another man, who eventually wrested the revolver from him, it was held that he was guilty of an attempt to discharge the revolver.2 Again, where during an interview the prosecutor saw the prisoner drawing from his pocket what he rightly guessed to be a loaded revolver, and promptly closed with him, with the result that the prisoner never quite got his arm sufficiently free to raise it and aim at the prosecutor before assistance arrived and the revolver was taken from him-the Court for Crown Cases Reserved held that the prisoner, who during the struggle had said several times to the prosecutor, "You've got to die," was rightly convicted under Fection 18, but not under section 14 of an attempt to murder.3 1 14 & 15 Vict. c. 19, s. 5; see post, p. 321. 2. Conspiracy or Inciting to Murder. Every conspiracy to commit a crime is a misdemeanour at common law punishable with two years' imprisonment;1 but a conspiracy to murder is a misdemeanour punishable with penal servitude for ten years. And by the same section "whosoever shall solicit, encourage, persuade or endeavour to persuade, or shall propose to any person, to murder" any one, is liable to the same punishment. In both cases it is immaterial whether the proposed victim be a subject of His Majesty or not, or be within the King's dominions or not. "If 3. Concealment of Birth. any woman shall be delivered of a child, every person who shall, by any secret disposition of the dead body of the said child, whether such child died before, at or after its birth, endeavour to conceal the birth thereof, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the Court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour." On an indictment for the murder of a recently-delivered child, the jury may convict the prisoner of concealment of birth. The offence is not triable at Quarter Sessions. The prosecution must prove (i.) that a woman was delivered of a child; (ii) that when such child was dead the prisoner made a secret disposition of its body; and (iii) that by so doing the prisoner endeavoured to conceal its birth. (i.) It is, as a rule, the mother of the dead child who commits an offence of this nature. But the statute applies to "every person who endeavours to conceal the birth," whether that person be the mother or not.1 It does not matter whether the "child died before, at or after its birth." But it must be dead before its body is secretly As to the nature of a conspiracy, see ante, p. 255. 224 & 25 Vict. 100, s. 4. born, is within the section: R. v. Shephard, [1919] 2 K. B. 125. An incitement to murder an unborn child, as soon as it is 3 lb. s. 60. R. v. Bate and others (1871), 11 Cox, 686. disposed of; otherwise no offence under this section will be committed. (ii.) "What is a secret disposition must depend upon the circumstances of each particular case. The most complete exposure of the body might be a concealment; as, for instance, if the body were placed in the middle of a moor in the winter, or on the top of a mountain, or in any other secluded place, where the body would not be likely to be found. There would, in such a case, be a secret disposition of the body. The jury must say, in each case, whether or not the facts show that there has been such a disposition. . . It is easy to suggest cases where placing a body in a particular situation would undoubtedly be evidence of a secret disposition, as if a body were thrown down from a cliff to the sea shore in a secluded place. If, however, the place were very much frequented, there might be no evidence of a secret disposition from such an act."1 . A mere denial of the birth will not be sufficient; nor will the fact that the woman, when about to be delivered, made no preparation or purposely arranged to be unattended in her confinement.3 There must be some act of disposal of the body after the child is dead. Thus, flinging it over a wall four and a half feet high into a grazing-field or shutting it up in a box or a drawer is a secret disposition; but in one case, putting it in a box, closed but unfastened, in a room much resorted to by persons in the house, and in another case leaving it on the bed covered over with a petticoat, was held not to amount to a secret disposition of the dead body. Some evidence of identity is required, though in practice very little. It is enough if the prosecution can prove in evidence that from her appearance the woman had been with child, that from her altered appearance or the state of her room she had been delivered, and that the dead body of a 1 Per Bovill, C. J., in R. v. Brown (1870), L. R. 1 C. C. R. at pp. 246, 247. 2 R. v. Turner (1839), 8 C. & P. 755. 3 R. v. Izod (1904), 20 Cox, 690. 4 R. v. Brown, suprà; and see R. v. Cook (1870), 11 Cox, 542. R. v. George (1868), 11 Cox, 41; and see R. v. Sleep (1864), 9 Cox, 559. child was afterwards found in her room or in a box of hers or in some other place to which she would have had access. Thus a woman apparently pregnant, while staying at an inn at Stafford, received by post on August 28th, 1870, a Rugby newspaper with the Rugby postmark upon it. On the same day her appearance and the state of her room indicated that she had been delivered of a child. She left for Shrewsbury next morning carrying a parcel. That afternoon the dead body of a newly-born child, wrapped in a Rugby Gazette of August 27th, 1870, bearing the Rugby postmark, was found in the ladies' waiting-room at Stafford railway station. There is a railway from Stafford to Shrewsbury; but, as there was no evidence that the woman had been to the Stafford railway station, it was held that there was no sufficient proof that the body found there was that of her child.1 (iii.) The endeavour to conceal the birth is the gist of the offence, and the secret act of disposal must be done with a view to such concealment. It is always open to the prisoner to urge that no concealment was intended and to prove that she had told her friends of her condition before her confinement. So, too, the fact that she had made preparations, e.g., by summoning a doctor or making clothes for the child, would go far with the jury to show that no concealment had been intended.2 4. Attempt to commit Suicide. It is a misdemeanour at common law for any one to attempt. to kill himself; for suicide, if accomplished, is a felony. This offence is triable at Quarter Sessions, and is punishable with imprisonment for two years with hard labour. It has been decided that attempted suicide is not an attempt to murder within 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 15.1 5. Ill-treatment or Neglect of persons unable to take care of themselves. If, as we have seen, death results from or is accelerated by ill-treatment or neglect, those who had charge of the deceased may be indicted for manslaughter. But our law also deems such conduct criminal where death does not result. 1 R. v. Williams (1871), 11 Cox, 684. 2 R. v. Higley (1830), 4 C. & P. 366. 8 R. v. Mann, [1914] 2 K. B. 107. R. v. Burgess (1862), L. & C. 258; and see ante, p. 282. If a |