CHAPTER III.

STATUTES RELATIVE TO AGGRAVATED RIOTS.

1. Demolishing buildings, 7&8 G. 4, c. 30, s. 8.] The statute 7 & 8 G. 4, c. 30, for consolidating and amending the laws relative to malicious injuries, would apply to any offences committed in the course of a riot, but which, from any accidental cause, could not be brought home to the parties as done by them whilst riotously and tumultuously assembled. It, however, contains one section especially applicable to injuries by rioters. The former statutes, 9 G. 3, c. 29; 52 G. 3, c. 130; 56 G. 3, c. 125; and so much of 1 G. 1. C. 2. s. 5 (Riot Act) as relates to any rioters demolishing houses, having been repealed by 7 & 8 G. 4, c. 27; the 8th section of the 7 & 8 G. 4, c. 38, enacts

"That if any persons, riotously and tumultuously assembled together to the disturbance of the public peace, shall unlawfully and with force demolish, pull down, or destroy, or begin to demolish, pull down, or destroy, any church or chapel, or any chapel for the religious worship of persons dissenting from the united church of England and Ireland, duly registered or recorded, or any house, stable, coach-house, outhouse, warehouse, office, shop, mill, malthouse, hop-oast, barn, or granary, or any building or erection used in carrying on any trade or manufacture, or any branch thereof, or any machinery, whether fixed or moveable, prepared for or employed in any manufacture or in any branch thereof, or any steam engine or other engine for sinking, draining, or working any mine, or any staith, building, or erection used in conducting the business of any mine, or any bridge, waggonway, or trunk for conveying minerals from any mine, every such offender shall be guilty of felony, and, being convicted thereof, shall suffer death as a felon."

The punishment is now altered, by 4 & 5 Vict. c. 56; and 6 & 7 Vict. c. 10, see infra, page 38.

And by 2 & 3 W. 4, c. 72, it is enacted, that all the provisions of this Act shall relate to threshing-machines, whether fixed or moveable, and it gives a corresponding remedy against the hundred. It is to be premised, that all the decisions upon this Act, have a material bearing upon the question of the liability of the hundred, for the hundred is not liable except where the act is felonious.

2. Riotously.] The statute using this term of art, the common law definition of a riot must apply to any outrage to bring it under this Act. (Reg. v. Langford, 1 Car. & M. 602.)

3. What is a demolition under the statute.] The words are; "demolish, pull down, or destroy," but there need not be a total demolition or destruction to constitute the offence. If the building or erection were reduced to a useless state for habitation or other purpose for which it was intended, it would, according to the best authorities, be an offence within the Act. Thus, where the house was broken into, the windows demolished, a considerable quantity of furniture burnt outside the house, and fires lighted on the floors of the various rooms, so that the house was rendered quite uninhabitable, the prisoners were convicted. (Reg. v. Harris, 1 Car. & M. 661; per Tindal, C. J., Parke, J., and Rolfe, J.) So where a cottage was pulled down to the ground, except the chimney. (Reg. v. Langford, 1 Car. & M. 602; per Patteson, J.)

This seems to be the most reasonable construction; but Mr. Justice Coleridge is reported to have said, (Reg. v. Adams, 1 Car. & M. 299,) that the intention

must be "to leave the house no house at all." "If," said his lordship, "the prisoners intended to leave it still a house, though in a state however dilapidated, they are not guilty. If a man were to say, I have pulled down my house, we should understand what he meant; the state of that house must be the state to which these people intended to reduce this. 'Demolish,' 'pull down,' and 'destroy,' are strong words, and hard of proof." The facts were, that during an election row the house had been forcibly entered by the mob, and many of them said to the landlord, "Turn out the bloody blues (the rival party), or we will have the house down." They destroyed every moveable which they could find, and some fixtures, glasses, plates and chairs, windows and window-frames; and they wrenched away the bars from one window, and with them some of the surrounding brick-work. On a cry raised that the police were coming they quitted the premises. One witness, the daughter of the landlord, said: "As far as I saw, the rioters had done all they wanted to do, and were going away. I did not suppose that they were going to pull down the very walls of the house." The question was certainly left to the jury as to their intention; but it is submitted, with all deference to his lordship, that the cases already cited, and which were not referred to on this occasion, show that the Act does not require such a total destruction as he would seem, according to the report, to have thought essential. In the subsequent chapter upon the actions against the hundred, other cases on the subject will be noticed.

4. Beginning to demolish, pull down, or destroy.] The construction put upon these words, by analogy to the former decisions upon the Black Act and Riot Act, is that the part demolition must be with the intent to de

molish the whole. The question in each case of incomplete destruction will be, For what reason did the mob leave off? Was it because they had completed their purpose; or was it because they expected to be or were interrupted; and if not interrupted, would they have destroyed the whole? The following extract from an elaborate judgment of Mr. Justice Littledale illustrates this rule. (Reg. v. Howell, 9 C. & P. 437.)

"In Rex v. Thomas, 4 C. & P. 237." said his lordship, "which was decided by me, it appeared that the prisoner and others on the 15th of March, 1830, at about midnight, came to the house of the prosecutor, and that, having in a riotous manner burst open the door, they broke some of the furniture, all the windows, and one of the window-frames, and forced out a small iron bar; and that after doing this mischief they went away. It did not appear that there was anything to hinder the rioters from doing more damage if they had chosen so to do. I held in that case, that this will not be a beginning to demolish within the Act of Parliament, unless the jury shall be satisfied that the ultimate object of the rioters was to demolish the house, and that if they had carried their intentions into full effect, they would, in point of fact have demolished it. Now, here that is not so, for they came to do a great deal of mischief, and then go away, having manifestly completed their purpose, and done all the injury they meant to do.' A nearly similar rule is laid down by Lord Chief Justice Tindal, in a case where parties pursued an individual who took refuge in a house, and broke the windows and destroyed the furniture, and then went away; and in the case of Rex v. Batt, 6 C. & P. 329, Baron Gurney says: In the case of Rex v. Thomas, there was nothing to prevent the rioters from going on; and, in favor of life, it was inferred that, as they left off voluntarily, they never had any intention of proceeding further. But certainly that is not so here, because there is the interference of the police, and it was after the threats of the police that the mob desisted. If you are of opinion that this mob began to do mischief to the house, intending to persist in demolishing it if they had not been interrupted, the offence charged will have been committed.' There is no doubt that the rule of law, as there laid down, is appli

cable to this case. If part of the object of these rioters was to destroy and demolish this house, and they began to demolish it, they are clearly guilty of this felony. The demolition in this case was by means of fire; and although there is a specific enactment as to arson, yet if burning is the means of the demolition of the house, it is just as much within this enactment as the knocking down of the house by hammers or crow-bars, or anything else. If the mob went away without doing any act at all, they would not be guilty of this offence, whatever their intention might be; but if, having once begun it, they are prevented from going on with the act of demolition by the interference of the military, I am of opinion that this is a case clearly within this enactment." (See Ashton's Case, 1 Lewin, 296, cited in 1 Russell on Crimes, 271.)

If they leave off without being interrupted, this would of course be legitimate evidence of the absence of intention, and on the other hand if there be no direct evidence of original intention, what is actually done will be good ground to infer such intention.

The part injured must be some part of the freehold, and the destruction of moveable shop-shutters would not therefore suffice. (Reg. v. Howell, 9 C. & P. 437, per Littledale, J.) Where stones and brick-bats had been thrown against a house during the corn-law riots in 1815, and the inside window-shutters or window-sill, and part of the wood of the fan-light over the door, were broken, but none of the window-panes, Lord Ellenborough held, that it was a sufficient part demolition to support an action against the hundred, the mob only having stopped because they heard that the life-guards were coming. (Sampson v. Chambers, 4 Campb. 221.) And in a case which occurred at the trial of the Luddites, in 1813, under a similar Act as to mills (9 Geo. 3, c. 29), several were convicted for an attack upon Mr. Cartwright's mill, where the actual damage was a destruction of the windows and several