As regards a fire arising from accident, the Court considers the proximate cause of the accident. There are accidents and accidents. A person maliciously sets fire to a building, intending to burn only that building: but the fire spreads until half a town is consumed the offender will not be allowed to plead that he only intended to destroy the one building, and that the destruction of the others was accidental. The circumstance is not one for extenuation, but for aggravation. So if a person maliciously sets fire to his tailor's, and the fire consumes also an adjacent honorary portal, the case will be aggravated both by reason of the additional damage, and by reason that the damage was done to a public monument.

Again where the accident happened during the commission of another offence, the offender will be punished for arson aggravated by the additional offence. Thus if the offence be larceny, the case will come under the clause "Arson "with a view to personal advantage —” and this, apparently, no matter how accidentally the fire occurred. So in a case wherein a thief,

lighting his pipe in a wood-shed where he was plundering, was pounced upon by the master of the house and in the ensuing scuffle the pipe was knocked out of the offender's hand, the slavey set on fire and the house burnt. Here according to the Board, the fire was traceable to the offender's intent to steal, and the case aggravated to the highest degree: to punish the offender for larceny was considered insufficient, and the offence was brought in as the capital offence of arson with a view to personal advantage with (however) circonstances attenuantes 照惡徒謀財放火巳經燒燬 為首斬候例量減一等—and the penalty of one hundred blows and transportation for life 3000 li distance adjudged (H. A. H. L. Supp. vol. XIV. p. 41). And similarly so in the case of Yang Erh, who having committed an act of larceny, was running away, and while doing so, dropped a slow-match within the house where he had committed his offence, and thereby set the house on fire (H. A. H. L. Supp. vol. XIV. p. 42). Indeed it seems to be the general ruling, that if a fire can be traced to a person

who commits an act of larceny he will be held responsible under the above clause; and under exceptional conditions, as in the above case, the penalty will be mitigated.

And the rule for mitigation also applies apparently, and similarly exceptionally, in the case of fire resultant upon another offence.

Lastly there is the case of accident pure and simple. This is by no means in general a consideration for complete excuse on the contrary it is punishable. A person who accidentally sets fire to his own house is liable to a minimum

punishment of forty blows and if the fire spread to other buildings to fifty blows. And so also with an increasing penalty in the case of accidentally firing honorary portals, monuments, public residences, etc. etc. Where the person or persons involved were under some special liability for the safety of the object set fire to, the case is more obvious. So in the case of a junk forming one of the rice convoy, wherein a sudden squall arising, the mast shivered, and the sail dropping on on to a stove at which the man-at-the-wheel was cooking his supper caused the

vessel to catch fire. For this the captain of the junk was sentenced to eighty blows, and the official in charge of the convoy to a month's cangue and be it noted, not for mere liability for simple damage sustained, but for arson (H. A. H. L. Supp. vol. XIV. p. 40).

Attempted Arson. Though a person has merely attempted the offence, he may be punished with a mitigated penalty for malicious arson and the intent to attempt the offence will in some cases be inferred. So in an instance where the offender had thrown a bomb with a lighted match attached into a shop, with a view of frightening the proprietor, and was sentenced to a mitigated penalty of one hundred blows and three years' transportation for malicious arson although no damage ensued (H. A. H. L. Supp. vol. XIV. p. 41).

The offences dealt with herein as Offences against the Peace are, on the whole, familiar to the English student in this connection: but the mode of consideration differs widely, and further, to meet special conditions in certain parts, special treatment has been devised in place of the ordinary law on the point. Indeed the local authorities may be said to possess very considerable extraordinary powers for the preservation of the public peace.

As regards the ordinary mode of legal treatment, the rules touching unlawful assemblages, rout,

C. E. G.

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