it was immaterial what or where the object was, which he shot at. See Chapter XIV.

Such cases, though rare, must still be subject to certain fixed principles.

In the Civil Law there is a maxim, that apices juris non sunt jus-that the points or the extremities of the law are not law, or a part of the law: but such a maxim has never been adopted by the Law of England. By the Law of England, we consider and decide these extreme points as mathematicians do evanescent quantities, by the same rules, proportions, and analogy, that we apply to more discernible and tangible matters and substances. For, where the offence is using a greyhound, setting-dog, lurcher, gun, net, &c. he clearly must use them where he himself corporeally is present. But if it were a prosecution, as it may be under 13th Geo. III. c. 54, and 13th Geo. III. c. 80, for killing Game, the offence would be committed where the animal receives the mortal wound.

Where a man upon land fired a musket at a boat upon the sea, and killed another, it was decided by the twelve Judges, after two arguments, that he might be tried at the Sessions of the Admiralty; and he received judgment of death from the Judge

of the Admiralty Court, and was executed.Coomes' Case, Leach, Crown Cases, case 388*.

*Such extreme cases sometimes occur. I lately saw a case before the Middlesex Sessions: the question was, in which parish a man resided; his bed being placed directly over the boundary of two parishes; and part of his body, when he slept, must have been in one parish, and part in another. It was stated, that the Court held he was settled in that parish where his head and heart, being the most important and vital parts, were reposing.

1

I should have been of a different opinion, for the following reason: Every man's settlement can only be changed by a residence of forty days, in another township or parish; and that residence, I should have held, must be with his whole entire body, and not with part of it only. If, therefore, his foot or toe still remained, where he had a settlement, I should have held that settlement was not changed. Or, if he had so slept on the boundaries of two parishes, both being different from the parish in which he had an original settlement, I should, for the same reason, say he retained that original settlement, because he had not been resident for forty days in any other parish.

These are extreme subtle cases, in which there will always be room for a difference of opinion.

In the Mahomedan Law, it is murder to kill a Mussulman or a true believer, but it is not murder to kill an Infidel; and there is a long chapter to explain what ought to be the decision of the judge, if the person killed had been a Mussulman, but, during the flight of the arrow, had become an Infidel; or, if an Infidel, he had so become a Mussulman.

This is one case; viz.

"If a person shoot an arrow at an apostate, and the

apostate

apostate become a true believer, and the arrow then hit and kill him, the shooter is not liable to any fine, according to all our doctors; and, so likewise, if a person shoot an arrow at an hostile Infidel, and the Infidel become a Mussulman, and the arrow then hit and kill him: for, as the shooting at the person, whilst an apostate or a hostile Infidel, was not an occasion of responsibility, because of his not being then in a state of protection, it follows that it does not become so afterwards."

Other cases are put; as where a man shoots an arrow at a slave, who, during the flight of an arrow, becomes emancipated, or at a condemned criminal, who becomes, in like manner, acquitted.-Hamilton's Hedaya, Vol. IV. p. 325.

These are pure abstract cases: no such instance ever occurred; but they are intended to practise the student in the application of fixed principles.

CHAP.

CHAP. XII.

ACTIONS FOR THE PENALTIES UNDER THE GAME LAWS.

No action could be brought to recover the penalty for keeping or using greyhounds, setting-dogs, lurchers, nets, or any engine for the destruction of game, before the year 1721; when the Game Laws were made much more severe, by the 8 Geo. I. c. 19. · by which it was enacted, that "wheresoever any person shall, for any offence to be hereafter committed against any law now in being, for the better preservation of the Game, be liable or subject to pay any pecuniary penalty or sum of money, upon conviction before any justice or justices of the peace, it shall and may be lawful for any other person whatsoever, either to proceed to recover the said penalty, by information and conviction before any justice or justices of the peace, in such manner as is in such law contained; or to sue for the same by action of debt, or on the case, bill, plaint, or information, in any of his Majesty's Courts of Record, wherein

wherein no essoin, protection, wager of law, or more than one imparlance, shall be allowed, and wherein the plaintiff, if he recovers, shall likewise have his double costs.

"II. Provided that all suits and actions to be brought by force of this act, shall be brought before the end of the next term after the offence committed; and that no offender against any of the laws now in being, for the better preservation of the Game, shall be prosecuted for the same offence, both by the way prescribed by this law, and by the way prescribed by any of the said former laws and in case of any second prosecution, the person so doubly prosecuted may plead, in his defence, the former prosecution pending, or the conviction or judgment thereupon had."

This made the punishment for the offences committed by unqualified persons far more severe; as the costs of the action will probably be twelve or twenty times the penalty, which might, before and since, be recovered before a justice of the peace. The prosecutor, also, has his double costs: but double costs, when given by an Act of Parliament, mean this; viz. Whatever is allowed by the officer of the court as single costs, he adds one half of that to it, and the sum is double costs; and one half

of