wrong. One who writes a libel in a foreign country may be punished criminally for it at any place where it may be published. One who practices a fraud through the mails or by innocent agents may be punished at any place where the fraud is perpetrated, regardless of where he was at the time he mailed the letter or planned the fraud. A shot fired from one jurisdiction and killing a man in another renders the person firing the shot liable for murder at the place where the shot took effect.

§ 78. Injury inflicted in one place and victim dies in another. In the early days of the common law the witnesses to the act were the jury to try the offense, and it was an established principle that a man was entitled to trial by a jury of the vicinage. The sheriff was bound to summon the jury from among the inhabitants of the county. From these rules it resulted that if a man was shot in one county and went to another and died, he could not be convicted of the murder at all; because the jury where he was injured could not know of his death, and the jury where he died could not inquire of the injury. To avoid this difficulty the officers resorted to the practice of carrying the dead body to the county where the wrong was committed, so that the jury could find both facts,— the injury and death. It was also provided by an early statute (2 & 3 Edw. VI. c. 24) that the offender might be punished within the county where the death occurred though the injury was inflicted in another county. In a number of states in this country it has been provided by statute that if a person is injured in a foreign country or state, and comes within that state and dies,

the person inflicting the injury may be punished for the crime where the death occurs; and these statutes have been held constitutional (3). It has also been held that under a statute authorizing the trial of the offender in the county where the injury is inflicted, he may be tried there though the victim goes to a place out of the state and dies (4).

PART II.

SPECIFIC CRIMES.

§ 79. Outline. Having considered the principal questions concerning the law of crimes in general in the first part of this article, we come now to consider the particular crimes and the minor and more minute rules concerning the several crimes. Because of the fact that there are certain crimes that very much resemble each other, and are therefore to a certain extent governed by the same rules, it will aid very much in the proper understanding of the law if we consider like crimes together or as nearly so as may be; and for this purpose the following classification has generally been made by writers upon this subject: (1) Crimes against the person; (2) crimes against the habitation; (3) crimes against property rights; (4) crimes against the public peace; (5) crimes against the general welfare (public morals, health, safety and comfort); (6) crimes against the administration of public justice and authority; (7) treason-threatening the existence of the government; (8) piracy-an offense against all nations. We shall consider these in their order.

CHAPTER VII.

CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON.

§ 80. Outline. The following are the principal crimes against the person: (1) simple assault; (2) assault aggravated by intent to do some greater injury than battery: (3) assault coupled with battery, which makes assault and battery; (4) false imprisonment; (5) kidnaping; (6) maim or mayhem; (7) rape; (8) homicide. We will consider these in their order, from the least to the greatest.

SECTION 1. SIMPLE ASSAULT.

§ 81. Defined. It is impossible to give a satisfactory simple definition of assault for the reason that three different offenses are each known and commonly spoken of as assault; these offenses are as follows: (a) An attempt unlawfully to apply any or the least force to the person of another, directly or indirectly; (b) the act of using a gesture toward another giving him reasonable grounds to believe that the person using such gesture means to apply such actual force to his person as aforesaid; (c) the act of depriving another of his liberty, in either case without the consent of the person assaulted or with such consent if it is obtained by fraud. An assault is any attempt or offer with force and violence to do a corporal hurt to another, whether from malice or wantonness; as by striking

at him, or even by holding up one's fist at him in a threatening or insulting manner, or with other circumstances as denote at the time an intention, coupled with a present apparent ability, to use actual violence against his person; as by pointing a weapon at him within the reach of it. Where the injury is actually inflicted, it amounts to a battery (which includes an assault), and this, however, small it may be; as by spitting in a man's face, or any way touching him in anger without any lawful occasion. But if the occasion were merely accidental and undesigned, or if it were lawful, and the party used no more force than was reasonably necessary to accomplish the purpose, as to defend himself against a prior assault, or to arrest the other, or make him desist from some wrongful act or endeavor, or the like; it is no assault or battery in the law, and the party may justify the force; and any matter in justification or excuse, such as self-defense, may upon an indictment be given in evidence under the general issue, not guilty; and the defendant who is charged with assault and battery, may be found guilty of the assault and acquitted of the other. The plea of selfdefense is avoided if the defendant took advantage of a pretext to wreak vengeance and inflict a punishment wholly out of proportion to the provocation given. What would otherwise be an assault from the threatening attitude in which it is made may amount to no assault because of the words of explanation given at the time; as in the case of the man who approached another in a threatening attitude and said: "If the judges were not in town I would not take that from you."