Odger's English Common Law

PRINCIPALS AND ACCESSORIES. 133
longer involves any forfeiture of the prisoner's property. 1
Hence the distinction between a felony and a misdemeanour
is now perfectly arbitrary, and should be abolished. In the
present state of our law we can only define a misdemeanour
by saying that every indictable offence which is neither
treason nor felony is a misdemeanour. The word " misdemeanour
" thus includes " a misprision." A misprision may
be described as a negative misdemeanour, a mere passive
omission of one's duty, as distinct from active misbehaviour
e.g., not assisting the King with advice or warlike service
not turning out when the sheriff calls on the posse conritattts
for aid. 2
Principals and Accessories.
Any one who takes part in the actual commission of a
crime is a principal. If he actually commits the crime with
his own hand, or employs an innocent agent to commit it, he
is a principal in the first degree. If he aids and abets the
commission of a crime by another, he is a principal in the
second degree. A principal in the second degree is regarded
as equally guilty, and is liable to the same punishment, as a
principal in the first degree ; for it is a general rule that
whenever two or more persons act in concert with a common
purpose which is criminal, each is liable for every act done
by any of the others in furtherance of that common purpose. 3
It makes no difference in the criminal quality of the act done whether
the offender did it directly with his own hand, or indirectly by means of
some innocent agent ; in each case the prime mover is criminally responsible.
Thus, where a cook poisoned her master's dinner and sent it to him in the
hay-fields by his little daughter, who was only six years of age, and the
master ate it and died, the cook was held to be a principal in the first
degree. If a husband at the request of his wife were to deliver a black-
mailing letter written by her, being himself unconscious of its contents, his
wife would be just as liable as if she had delivered it with her own hand.
If a man employs a conscious or unconscious agent to commit an offence
in this country, he may be amenable to the laws of England, although he
was at the time living out of the jurisdiction of our Courts.
i The Abolition of Forfeitures Act, 1870 (33 & 31 Vict. c. 23), s. 1.
2 As to misprision of treason, see post, p. 151 ; as to misprision of felony, see
pott, p. 208. It is no crime to misprise a misdemeanour.
9 See R. v. Swindall and Osborne (1846), 2 C. & K. 230, post, p. 272 ; and
R. v. Salmon and others (1880),, 6 Q. B. D. 79, post, p. 296.
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