murder, high treason and other crimes of a heinous character, capital punishment is sometimes inflicted. In many states the jury passes upon the question of the prisoner's guilt, and the court fixes the measure of punishment within the limits prescribed by the statute. In other

states the jury has this power. In the federal courts the jury passes only upon the question of the prisoner's guilt. Sometimes, in addition to the penalties of fine and imprisonment, the offender is disfranchised and is made incompetent to testify as a witness.

§ 261. Jurisdiction of crimes.-The jurisdiction to try and punish offenders against state laws is lodged in the courts of the state within whose borders the offenses are committed. Offenses against the laws of the United States are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts within their respective districts. This is what may be called geographical jurisdiction. Jurisdiction may depend also on the class of crimes the court may take cognizance of. Petty offenses are tried by magistrates without the formality of indictment or information, while graver charges are only cognizable by superior courts, in which the indictment is preferred by the grand jury and the trial is by a petit jury. As to crimes committed on the high seas, the jurisdiction of nations is determined by treaties and the law of nations.

§ 262. Territorial jurisdiction of crimes.-Ordinarily, criminal laws have no force beyond the boundaries of the state enacting the law. But cases arise where crimes are committed partly in one state or county and partly in another. If one enters into a conspiracy with others to commit a crime in another state, and the crime is committed, he may be tried and punished in the state where the crime is committed, though before the trial he

may never have been personally within the limits of that state. So if one stands near a boundary line and shoots across it, and the shot takes effect upon a person in another state or county he may be tried in the jurisdiction where the shot took effect. If a fatal blow is given in one state and the victim removes to another before death ensues, the assailant must be tried in the jurisdiction where the blow was given, though some courts hold that jurisdiction rests concurrently in the courts of both localities. Offenses committed on board ships are generally punishable in the country to which ships belong. Crimes committed on private ships in foreign ports are punishable in foreign courts if they are of sufficient gravity to endanger the peace and tranquility of the port, but otherwise they are punishable by the courts of the country to which the ship belongs. The rights of subjects of one country traveling or residing in another are generally regulated by treaty stipulations. In the absence of such stipulations the rules as above stated will prevail. By the statutes of some states, where a theft is committed in one state and the goods are carried to another, the state in which the offense originated has exclusive jurisdiction, while a different rule prevails in other states.

§ 263. Criminal offenses in general.-Every state in the Union has its own way of defining crimes and declaring what punishment shall be inflicted upon offenders. We shall not undertake to give a compilation of the various statutory enactments, but shall content ourselves by giving in brief the essential ingredients of such crimes as are recognized and punished in most of the states.

§ 264. Abortion.-Abortion consists of causing the miscarriage or premature delivery of a woman. The statutes of some of the states require that the child shall have quickened in the womb at the time of the commission of the crime. The laws of other states declare that the offense may be complete at any time after gestation has begun. The consent of the mother is no defense.

§ 265. Adultery.—Adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse with another man's wife. The woman must be married; she must be another man's wife, and whoever, married or single, has illicit intercourse with her becomes guilty of adultery. Such are the essentials of adultery at common law. In some states the offender who is married is alone held guilty; in other states, where the intercourse is between a married woman and a single man, the woman alone is guilty.

§ 266. Fornication.-Fornication is voluntary illicit sexual intercourse under circumstances not constituting adultery. Single acts of fornication have been made criminal in some states, while in others it is punished only when it is habitual and notorious.

§ 267. Incest.-Incest is sexual intercourse by persons who are related to each other in degrees within which marriage is prohibited by law. It is a crime unknown to the common law, and the statutes of the different states must be consulted to ascertain what constitutes the offense in any given locality.

§ 268. Rape.-Rape is the having carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will. Sexual intercourse with a child under the age of consent fixed by

law, with an insane woman, or a woman in a condition in which she can not consciously consent, or when consent is extorted by fear, is rape, though no actual force be used. The crime is not complete unless there is some penetration by the male organ. It is no defense to a charge of rape that the injured woman is a prostitute, though her evidence would be regarded with suspicion. It may be said of the crime, generally, that it is a charge easily made and hard to disprove. If the woman be of good repute and make seasonable outcry, and show signs of injury, and the place where the crime was perpetrated be remote from observation, and if the offender flee to avoid arrest, her testimony is of great weight. A male under the age of fourteen is, in many states, conclusively presumed to be incapable of committing the offense; in other jurisdictions his ability to commit the crime is matter for proof.

§ 269. Seduction.-Seduction is the enticing by a man of an unmarried woman of previous chaste character, by means of persuasions and promises, to have sexual intercourse with him. Some statutes require the promise to be a promise of marriage. Others make it a crime to debauch and seduce an unmarried female of previous chaste character without regard to the means employed. Where the consent is given merely from carnal lust and the intercourse is from mutual desire, there is no seduction. If the woman knew the man to be married she will not be heard to say that she consented to the intercourse because of a promise of marriage.

§ 270. Abduction and kidnaping. Abduction, though not a common-law crime, is made a crime by the statutes of most of the states. It is the act of taking