CRIMINAL LAW REPORTS. NORTHERN CIRCUIT. Carlisle, Thursday, February 19, 1874. (Before Mr. Justice DENMAN.) REG. v. TOWERS. (12 Cox's Criminal Cases, 530.) Manslaughter.- Death through Fright. - Direct Cause.- Question for the Jury. Where A., in unlawfully assaulting B., who at that time had in her arms an infant, so frightened the infant that it had convulsions, although previously healthy, and from the effects of which it eventually died in about six weeks, A. is guilty of manslaughter if the jury think that the assault on B. was the direct cause of death. WILSON TOWERS was charged with the manslaughter of John Hetherington, at Castlesowerby, on the 6th of September, 1873. Thurlow was for the prosecution. Henry was for the defence. The prisoner, who had been drinking, on the 4th of August went into a public house at New Yeat, near Castlesowerby, kept by the mother of the deceased, and there saw a girl called Fanny Glaister nursing the deceased child, who was then only about four months and a half old, having been born on the 20th of March, 1873. The prisoner, who appeared to have some grievance against Fanny Glaister about her hitting one of his children, immediately on entering the public house went straight up to where she was, took her by the hair of the head and hit her. She screamed loudly, and this so frightened the infant, that it became black in the face; and ever since that day, up to its death, it had convulsions, and was ailing generally from a shock to the nervous system. The child was previously a very healthy one. The following evidence for the prosecution was then given :Fanny Glaister said she was nurse with William Hetherington, innkeeper, New Yeat, near Castlesowerby; she was thirteen years of age. On August 4th she was nursing deceased, four and a half months old. It was a very healthy boy. On the day in question, Wilson Towers came into the house. He said she had been beating his child; she took the baby in her arms from Mrs. Hetherington, and sat down on her chair. Towers then came up to her, struck her on the mouth, and then lifted her up by the hair. She screamed, and this frightened the baby, and it cried till it was nearly black i the face. Mrs. Hetherington took the baby and followed Towers to the door; at that time the prisoner was not very drunk; the child went on screaming violently for more than an hour, and it had never cried like that before in its life. She remained with Mr. Hetherington until the 6th September, on which day the child died. Cross-examined. The child never screamed like this before, and afterwards became ill, being sick and taking fits. The first fit it had was on the Sunday after the day on which the assault was committed. About an hour before the child died it had had a fit of convulsions. Ellen Hetherington said she was mother of the deceased; that when Towers came in the baby was in the cradle. After Towers had commenced to abuse the girl, witness gave Fanny Glaister the child to nurse and a chair to sit upon. When Towers took the girl by the hair, she took charge of the child and soon afterwards noticed that it became black in the face. Prisoner then went out. She tried to pacify the child, and put it into the cradle where it slept, but in a very restless manner and sobbing all the time. It never rested properly during the whole of the time it lived; afterwards, about seven o'clock in the evening of August the 4th, it had a convulsive fit, which it never had before. Previous to this it had always been a very healthy child, a very quiet child, never screaming, and had not been in the habit of crying. On Monday, August the 4th, she sent for Dr. Brown, but the child took fits every day, and it died on the 6th of September. On the Monday before it died it was also taken to Dr. Mitchell. William Brown said he was a surgeon, and lived at Hesket-Newmarket; that on the 4th of August he was called to Hetherington's house to see the child. He found it very irritable and flushed in the face. He prescribed an alterative medicine. From the symptoms displayed by the child, and supposing he had not been told anything about the case, he should have considered it was suffering from irritation of the nervous system. He saw it a few days afterwards and it was in much the same condition as before. He saw it once in a convulsive fit, which was brought on by witness sneezing within hearing of the child. The deceased gradually got worse. It was a strong, well-made, plump and healthy child when he first saw it on August the 4th. He examined its teeth when he first went, and he did not think it was then teething, so that the convulsions he saw in the child would not, in his opinion, arise from that cause. Usually teething commences at seven months old. The appearances he saw in the child might be accounted for by sudden fright, for in every other way it was a healthy child. Cross-examined. He did not see the child immediately before its death. It was buried and exhumed, but at the coroner's inquest they did not think it necessary to make a post-mortem examination. As to the approximate cause of death, therefore, he knew nothing, and his opinion as to the cause was based upon Mrs. Hetherington's statement. She told him it had had frequent fits, but she did not know how many; understood it had fits of convulsion almost every day. In teething, the new teeth might be set in the gums before they are visible, and the child in that case would be more predisposed to nervous shocks. Children frequently die of convulsions brought on by teething. Has seen a case of fright before, and the symptoms are general debility of the body, flushed face, nervous twitchings and startings. In this child noticed the flushed face, and a quick pulse of 140, the ordinary pulse in a child of that age being 100. At first did not notice the twitchings, but they only take place occasionally. The mother told him about the tremors and twitchings, and noticed them himself when it was in a convulsion; teething might possibly have produced the symptoms he saw in the child. Dr. Mitchell said he lived at South Yeat, near Castlesowerby, and was a physician; that about a week before it died the child was brought to him, and that was the only time he saw it. It had not convulsions on it then, but was in a low condition and very irritable, and in such a state that he saw it was subject to fits of convulsion. A sudden fright a month before, supposing it had then been in a healthy state, might have brought it to the condition in which it then was by working on it through convulsions. DENMAN, J. Suppose a child should suffer to the extent of convulsions in the early stage of teething, and then go down in health in consequence, would the teeth go on working their way in the same way as if the child was healthy, or would there be a cessation? Witness. The teeth would still go on, and from the appearance of the symptoms of teething to the appearance of the teeth through the gums, not more than a month would elapse, and frequently less. Cross-examined. Thinks a scream from a girl might throw the child into convulsions and eventually cause its death, or if it lived cause it to be an idiot. The most morbid symptoms of fright were irritability and sleeplessness, though there were many more. Nothing definite might show itself for years. This was the case for the prosecution. Henry submitted there was no case to go to the jury, but DENMAN, J., said, that he should leave it to the jury to say whether the death of the child was caused by the unlawful act of the prisoner, or whether it was not so indirect as to be in the nature of accident. This case was different from other cases of manslaughter, for here the child was not a rational agent, and it was so connected with the girl, that an injury to the girl became almost in itself an injury to the child. DENMAN, J., in summing up, said: It was a very unusual case, and it was very unusual indeed to find a case in which they got practically no assistance from previously decided cases. There was no offence known to our law so various in its circumstances, and so various in the considerations applicable to it, as that of manslaughter. It might be that in this case, unusual as it was, on the principle of common law, manslaughter had been committed by the prisoner. The prisoner committed an assault on the girl, which is an unlawful act, and if that act, in their judgment, caused the death of the child, i. e. that the child would not have died but for that assault, they might find the prisoner guilty of manslaughter. He called their attention to some considerations that bore some analogy to this case. This was one of the new cases to which they had to apply old principles of law. It was a great advantage that it was to be settled by a jury and not by a judge. If he were to say, as a conclusion of law, that murder could not have been caused by such an act as this, he might have been laying down a dangerous precedent for the future; for, to commit a murder, a man might do the very same thing this man had done. They could not commit murder upon a grown-up person by using language so strong, or so violent, as to cause that person to die. Therefore, mere intimidation, causing a person to die from fright by working upon his fancy, was not murder. But there were cases in which intimidations had been held to be murder. If, for instance, four or five persons were to stand around a man, and so threaten him and frighten him as to make him believe that his life was in danger, and he were to back away from them and tumble over a precipice to avoid them, then murder would have been committed. Then did, or did not, this principle of law apply to the case of a child of such tender years as the child in question. For the purposes of the case he would assume that it did not; for the purposes of to-day he should assume that the law about working upon people by fright did not apply to the case of a child of such tender years as this. Then arose the question which would be for them to decide, whether this death was directly the result of the prisoner's unlawful act — whether they thought that the prisoner might be held to be the actual cause of the child's death, or whether they were left in doubt upon that, upon all the circumstances of the case. After referring to the supposition that the convulsions were brought on owing to the child teething, he said that, even though the teaching might have had something to do with it, yet if the man's act brought on the convulsions or brought them to a more dangerous extent, so that death would not have resulted otherwise, then it would be manslaughter. If, therefore, the jury thought that the act of the prisoner in assaulting the girl was entirely unconnected with it, that the death was not caused by it, but by a combination of circumstances, it would be accidental death and not manslaughter.1 1 In connection with this case it would be well to bear in mind a remark of Chief Baron Pollock in Greenland v. Chaplin (5 Ex. 243, 248), which was a civil action for negligence: "I am desirous," he says, "that it may be understood that I entertain considerable doubt, whether a person who is guilty of negligence is responsible for all the consequences which may under any circumstances arise, and in respect of mischief which could by no possibility nave been foreseen, and which no reasonable person would have anticipated." Hale says (1 Pleas of Crown, 429): "If a man Not guilty. either by working upon the fancy of an- |