Odger's English Common Law

CRIMINAL OMISSION, CAUSING DEATH. 293
prisoner to supply her aunt with sufficient food to maintain life, and that
having neglected that duty the prisoner was rightly convicted of man-
slaughter. 1
A great number of omissions have been made criminal by
modern legislation. Thus by section 12 (1) of the Children
Act, 1908, 2 "if any person over the age of sixteen years,
who has the custody, charge or care of any child or young
person, wilfully . . . neglects, abandons or exposes such child
or young person, or causes or procures such child or young
person to be . . . neglected, abandoned or exposed, in a manner
likely to cause such child or young person unnecessary suffer-
ing or injury to his health, . . . that person shall be guilty
of a misdemeanour,'' and, should death ensue, of the felony
of manslaughter. A subsequent clause in the same section
provides that "for the purposes of this section a parent or
other person legally liable to maintain a child or young
person shall be deemed to have neglected him in a manner
likely to cause injury to his health, if he fails to provide
adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging for the
child or young person, or if, being unable otherwise to provide
such food, clothing, medical aid or lodging, he fails to take
steps to procure the same to be provided under the Acts
relating to the relief of the poor."
If, therefore, any parent who is able to provide medical
aid for his sick child omits to do so and the child dies in
consequence, the parent is guilty of manslaughter. So is any
parent who, being unable to provide medical aid for his sick
child out of his own resources, omits to notify the proper
authorities.
The duty of a parent to provide medical aid for his children whenever
they are seriously ill has been much discussed in connection with prosecutions
taken against the Peculiar People. They are a religious sect who
disbelieve in the medical treatment of illness, basing their doctrine upon
the verse, " Is any sick among you ? Let him call for the elders of the
church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in th6 name of
the Lord." 3 This advice, given hundreds of years ago to people in a
different climate and with different manners and customs at a time when
1 B. v. Intern, [1893] 1 Q. B. 450.
2 8 Edw. VII. c. 67. And ste yo«t, p. H10.
3 EpistJe of St. James, Chap. V., vv. 14, 15.