Odger's English Common Law

112 THE ELEMENTS OF A CRIME.
statute, e.g., all attempts to murder (by drowning, suffocation,
poison or otherwise) ; an attempt to discharge any kind of
loaded firearms at any person, with intent to do him grievous
bodily harm ; an attempt to procure abortion ; an attempt to
endanger the safety of railway passengers ; an attempt to set
fire to buildings, mines, ships, crops, stacks, &c. But an
attempt to commit suicide remains a common law misde-
meanour, and is still triable at Quarter Sessions, 1 though
punishable with hard labour. 2
II. Guilty Mind.
"It is a general principle of our criminal law that there
must be as an essential ingredient in a criminal offence some
blameworthy condition of mind. Sometimes it is negligence,
sometimes malice, sometimes guilty knowledge—but as a
general rule there must be something of that kind which is
designated by the expression mens rea," 3 that is, "a guilty
mind." With this essential element of a crime we will deal
under four separate heads :
1. Criminal Intention.
2. Criminal Negligence.
—
3.' Special Intent and Guilty Knowledge.
4. Malice.
We will then proceed to discuss
u. Cases in which there is no guilty mind owing to some
mental incapacity or defect of the will, judgment or understanding
of the accused, or by reason of coercion, or of some
honest mistake of fact.
(1) Criminal Intention.
A criminal intention is an intention to do an act which by
the law of the land is criminal. It makes no difference that
the criminal does not know what the law of the land is. He
1 Seo post, Part III., Chap. V.,
1 H. v. Mam,, [1914] 2 K. B. 107.
Acts endangering Human Life.
8 Per Cave, J., iaChisholm v. Doulton (1889), 22 Q. B. D. at p. 741.