throws missiles from a house into a public street where persons are passing.

§ 613. Ignorance or mistake of fact.-Ignorance or mistake of fact will sometimes deprive an unlawful act of its criminal character, as where one takes the property of another supposing it to be his own, or obstructs a highway without knowing it to be a highway, but where a statute makes an act unlawful irrespective of guilty knowledge, ignorance or mistake is no defense.

§ 614. Ignorance of law.-Ignorance of law is no excuse for the commission of a crime, even where the statute making the act criminal has been enacted so recently as to make it impossible that the accused should have known of its existence. Such ignorance would go far to mitigate the punishment, and would give good grounds for an appeal to the pardoning power in cases of conviction.

§ 615. Self-defense.-Self-defense is a right which exists in all places without regard to positive law. It may be asserted by any human being, where he is in apparently imminent danger of suffering loss of life, limb or great bodily harm. If the conduct of the assailant is such as to produce in the mind of a reasonable person a belief that such harm is intended, the person assailed may defend himself even to the point of killing his assailant, though the danger was not real but only apparent.

§ 616. Offenses committed by wife.-An offense committed by the wife in the presence of the husband is prima facie done by his coercion, though this presumption may be overcome by evidence showing that she acted upon her own independent volition,

and in such a case she and she alone is criminally responsible.

§ 617. Where principal liable criminally for of fense of agent.-A principal is not liable for the criminal acts done by his agent unless the agent is acting under orders from the principal. The same rule applies to master and servant. Where an agent or

servant is put in charge of a business, such as publishing a newspaper or keeping a saloon, and a criminal libel is published in the paper or liquor is unlawfully sold in the saloon, the owner of the paper or the proprietor of the saloon may be punished criminally for the act of the agent or servant.

§ 618. Principal and accessories. In the commission of crimes there may be principals and accessories. To constitute one a principal he must be actually or constructively present when the crime is committed, as where one does the act, and another stands near by to give assistance or give warning of the approach of the officers, in such case both are principals.

An accessory before the fact is one who is not the chief actor in the commission of a crime, but procures, counsels, or commands another to commit it. An accessory after the fact is one who, knowing that a crime has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the criminal.

§ 619. Drunkenness.-Voluntary drunkenness will not excuse crime. Where, as a result of habitual drunkenness, one becomes permanently diseased to the extent that he has lost his will power and is incapable of knowing right from wrong, he is incapable of committing crime. Some courts have held

that voluntary drunkenness aggravates a crime, but the better opinion is now to the contrary. Drunkenness of the accused at the time of the commission of the offense may be given in evidence to show want of malice, premeditation or intent.

§ 620. Insanity.-Insanity, where it is such as to prevent the accused from distinguishing right from wrong, will relieve him of criminal responsibility, and if from all the facts in the case the jury have a reasonable doubt as to the sanity of the accused they should acquit.

§ 621. Punishment.-Punishment is inflicted for the public good. The same act may be punishable as a crime and be a wrong to the individual citizen, in which case the punishment of the crime does not prevent the citizen from seeking redress in a civil action for the damage done to him personally. The individual who suffers in such a case may compromise with the offender and waive his right to redress, but this is no bar to a prosecution of the offender by the state.

The object of punishment is to prevent crime, and this is effected by imposing pecuniary fines, by placing the offender under restraint for a given period of time, with the double view of reforming the prisoner and deterring others from committing like offenses, and in cases of murder, high treason and other crimes of a heinous character, capital punishment is inflicted. In many states the jury pass upon the question of the prisoner's guilt, and the court fixes the measure of punishment within the limits prescribed by the statute. In other states the jury have this power. In the federal courts the jury pass only

upon the question of the prisoner's guilt. Sometimes, in addition to the penalties of fine and imprisonment, the offender is disfranchised and is made incompetent to testify as a witness.

§ 622. Jurisdiction of crimes.-The jurisdiction to try and punish offenders against state laws is lodged in the courts of the state within whose borders the offenses are committed. Offenses against the laws of the United States are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts within their respective districts. This is what may be called geographical jurisdiction. Jurisdiction may depend also on the class of crimes the court may take cognizance of. Petty offenses are tried by magistrates without the formality of indictment or information, while graver charges are only cognizable by superior courts, in which the indictment is preferred by the grand jury and the trial is by a petit jury. As to crimes committed on the high seas, the jurisdiction of nations is determined by treaties and the law of nations.

§ 623. Territorial jurisdiction of crimes.-Ordinarily, criminal laws have no force beyond the boundaries of the state enacting the law. But cases arise where crimes are committed partly in one state or county and partly in another. If one enters into a conspiracy with others to commit a crime in another state, and the crime is committed, he may be tried and punished in the state where the crime is committed, though before the trial he may never have been personally within the limits of that state. So if one stands near a boundary line and shoots across it, and the shot takes effect upon a person in another state or county he may be tried in the jurisdiction where the shot

took effect. If a fatal blow is given in one state and the victim removes to another before death ensues, he must be tried in the jurisdiction where the blow was given, though some courts hold that jurisdiction. rests concurrently in the courts of both localities. Offenses committed on board ships are generally punishable in the country to which ships belong. The federal courts punish offenses committed by citizens of the United States in foreign lands, but whether the courts of the several states have this power is a mixed question. The power is claimed by the courts of Virginia and Wisconsin, and it is denied. in New York and Michigan. Crimes committed on private ships in foreign ports are punishable in foreign courts, and piracy may be punished in the courts of any country. If there is a conflict between the municipal law of a country and the law of nations, the latter will prevail.

§ 624. Jurisdiction over sovereigns, ambassadors, etc.-A sovereign traveling in a foreign country is not subject to its laws, and this immunity extends to foreign ambassadors, their households, secretaries and domestic servants. If any of these offend against the laws of the country where they may be residing temporarily, the only redress is to send them home and make demand upon the country they represent for reparation. This rule does not apply to consuls who are mere commercial agents. Persons belonging to an army or navy within foreign territory are free from arrest. The rights of subjects of one country traveling or residing in another are generally regulated by treaty stipulations. In the absence of such stipulations the rules as above stated