NOTES OF RECENT FOREIGN CASES. Evidence People v. Enright, III. 99 N. E. 936. "Criminal law -Evidence-Privilege of defendant. In a criminal prosecution where the defendant did not testify, an instruction that the jury should consider as though the defendant was not allowed to testify, was properly refused.":—Cr. L. and Cr. State v. Flanagan, N. J., 84 Atl. 1046. "On a trial of the defendant for manslaughter for pushing one from a trolley car, causing his death, evidence of the disorderly conduct of the defendant towards others in the car just prior to the embarking of the deceased and the Act of the defendant which caused his death was allowed to shew his state of mind and continuity of disposition toward those about him on the car. Held, that this was competent as evidencing his state of mind as carried forward and exhibited in a Criminal Act."-Cr. L. and Cr. People v. Gibson, III. 99 N. E. 599. Admissibility of evidence of other offences. "In a prosecution for statutory rape, evidence that about the same time and in the same room accused committed the crime against nature upon the prosecutrix, and had intercourse several times afterwards, was admissible.":-Cr. L. and Cr. "In a prosecution for statutory rape, evidence was not admissible that the accused had intercourse with a playmate of prosecutrix in the same room a few minutes after the act charged; the two acts not being so connected as to be part of the same transaction." Former Jeopardy Roman v. State, Tex. Cr. App. 142 S. W. 912. Crime used as circumstantial evidence of Another Crime-Defendant was tried and acquitted for statutory burglary by breaking and entering a railroad car. He was then tried on an indictment for larceny of the contents of the car. His plea of former jeopardy was overruled and the Court refused his request for an instruction that the jury, in determining the question of his guilt of innocence of larceny, could not consider for any purpose whether or not he broke and entered the car from which the property was stolen. Held, that the common law rule merging burglary and theft when committed contemporaneously and making conviction of one bar a prosecution for the other is abrogated by the provisions of the Penal Code making burglary and theft, though growing out of the same transaction, two separate and distinct offences. While defendant could not be prosecuted a second time for burglary, any evidence tending to shew that he was guilty of theft should be admitted, even though it prove that he was really guilty of burglary. The conviction was reversed on another ground.:-Cr. L. and Cr. AERIAL WARFARE. BY ROBERT E. HEINSELMAN. "For I dipt into the future. far as human eye could see, Thus wrote the poet Tennyson in 1842, and the Twentieth Century may witness a realisation of his dream. Authorities differ as to the number of aeroplanes and other aircraft now owned by the various governments. It is stated1 that France has 174 aeroplanes, Russia 150, Great Britain 86, Germany 50, United States 16; and that of dirigible balloons Germany has 30, France 15, Russia 9, and the United States 1; also that by 1915, France will have in the military service 900 aeroplanes and 1,500 trained pilots. The number of aircraft now owned by any government is, however, comparatively unimportant, because the day of "aerial navies" has only dawned, and the number of aircraft available to-day is insignificant compared with the "fleets" which will, no doubt, sail the skies within the next few years. But if war were declared to-day, it is evident that Germany, with her enormous Zeppelins, would hold the supremacy of the air, and that the United States would fall behind the other great powers in equipment for aerial warfare. 1 American Year Book, 1912. But while Germany, with her great aerial battleships, appears to be in the lead, France stands well in the forefront of military aviation. Her activity is evidenced by the steady increase in the French aeronautical budget for the past four years, which is as follows: 1910, $48,000; 1911, $400,000; 1912, $1,024,000; 1913, $7,593,000. In September, 1912, occurred in France the first review of an aeroplane armada, 72 army aeroplanes, with their full complements of pilots and motor trucks bearing supplies, passing in review before the French Minister of War. Imagine a naval warship 500 feet long, carrying a crew of 18 men, with room for storage of 5,500 pounds of explosives, and capable of an average speed of 45 miles an hour, and of remaining in the air from 24 to 30 hours, and you have an idea of one of the ships with which Germany is recruiting her" aerial navy." Twenty of these, it is said, with necessary "halls" for preservation when not in use, can be built for about the cost of one of the latest first-class battleships. Consider that an aviator2 has made the trip from Paris to London in 185 minutes of actual flying, that an aerial vessel of war, except on a night of brilliant moonlight, would be invisible at a height of 5,000 feet, while the lights of a great city could be easily discerned, and it does not now require the imagination of a Tennyson to fancy the havoc that, in the event of war, a fleet of such Zeppelins might work by sailing up the Thames and dropping a few tons of dynamite occasionally on dark nights on the streets of a city like London. Turning from the calamities that such enormous air ships might inflict, unless methods of extermination are invented, consider now the military uses of the smaller aircraft, which all the great powers will soon own by the hundred. Their purpose appears twofold,-first, for scouting; second, for attack by dropping or discharging explosives. As to the former, the usefulness apparent from the nature of the invention, confirmed by experiments, assures their value; as to the latter, owing to the meagre tests, their efficiency is more doubtful. Every great war has called forth heroes who have gladly sacrificed their lives to obtain coveted information as to the movements and power of the enemy. Thousands of Germans, it is said, in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, were 2 French aviator Brindejonc. martyrs to obtain a bit of intelligence regarding the enemy, which a single eye could have secured if elevated a distance of half a mile. Aircraft in war may, in this respect, prove a messenger of mercy. It must not, however, be imagined that the scouting purposes of the aeroplane and other aircraft will be accomplished without deeds of heroism and sacrifice of life. Indeed, it has been suggested that, with the development of aircraft destroyers, victory will lie with. that side which has the most numerous and swiftest air flotilla, because that nation can best afford to sacrifice the necessary number of aircraft to obtain the desired information. This will require bravery of the highest kind. That fatalities will be frequent in the use of military aircraft, even in times of peace, seems recognised by the French government, at least, in counting as war service time spent by an officer in the air, although engaged merely in reconnoitering during a sham battle. What do experiments shew as to the value of aircraft for scouting purposes? Aeroplanes and dirigible balloons have been used in actual warfare in the recent conflicts between the Turks and the Italians in Tripoli and Turkey and the Balkan states. In the war in Tripoli, the Italian forces were augmented by a fleet of seventeen aeroplanes, which rendered valuable Press despatches say that on one occasion several bombs dropped from one of these aeroplanes, caused the death of ten Arabs, and wounded others; that at another time a survey was made by an Italian dirigible of the Turkish position, in which, with three officers, the balloon sailed over the Turkish lines, unharmed by their rifle and artillery fire, and proceeded on its course, dropping bombs until it made a complete and exact reconnaissance of the enemy's camp, estimated the number of Turks and Arabs, took photographs of the position, and in two hours returned with the whole plan of the Turkish position at the disposal of the Italian general. In press despatches giving accounts of aeroplane and hydro-aeroplane flights by the allies in the recent Balkan War, it is said that a Greek hydro-aeroplane on one occasion made a flight, lasting two hours and twenty minutes, across the Dardanelles and the Niagara dockyard, upon which four bombs were dropped; and that although the Turkish field batteries and warships fired upon it, their fire was without effect, and the machine made a safe descent. On another occasion, the despatches say, a Bulgarian military aeroplane, while reconnoitering over the fortress of Adrianople, was hit by a Turkish shell and fell inside the lines, and the pilot, a Russian officer, was made a prisoner by the Turks. Commenting on the value of the aeroplane as a newsgatherer, as demonstrated in the recent Balkan War, Brigadier-General James N. Allison, U. S. A., in a recent number of the Military Service Journal, says: "It seems destined to succeed the cavalry as the eyes of the army,' doing more certain and efficient work at vastly less cost; for under favourable circumstances it will be easily possible for two men in an aeroplane to discover and report what is passing not only in front, but in rear, of a hostile line, to an extent hopelessly beyond the reach of a cavalry brigade or division." He comes to the conclusion, however, that the main value of the aeroplane in war will be for scouting purposes, rather than as a destructive agency. In practice manoeuvres, more than in actual warfare perhaps, the scouting value of aircraft has to date been best shewn. The London Times, commenting on the British manoeuvres in the fall of 1912, says that the tactics of opposing strategists were so completely upset by aerial scouting that they had to be prematurely brought to an end.3 "Stolen marches, ambuscades, and cavalry reconnoiters were made futile by the ever-present eye of the aerial scout, who sent his warnings down by wireless and made secrecy impossible. Nearly fourscore aeroplanes took part in the manoeuvres in France in September, 1912. The valuable service performed by them, without a single accident, is said to have convinced many army men that the chief value of the aeroplane is as an aid to the cavalry in reconnoitering. In the manoeuvres in Connecticut in August, 1912, the most interesting feature was the scouting of the aviator squadron. The work of Lieutenants Foulois and Milling especially served not only to demonstrate the value of the aeroplane as a means of scouting, but the advantage of having trained army men as aviators. Although both were handicapped by being unable to employ field glasses, owing to the necessity of using both hands in the control of their machines, and the former also by reason of making experiments with wireless tele As reported in Literary Digest, October 19, 1912. |