this day any amount of diversity as to the contracts and relations of the various patrons to the building and business of the proprietor. As observed in a recent case, and as we have substantially said above, "as the customs of society change, and the modes of living are altered, the law as established, under different circumstances, must yield and be accommodated to such changes." Carpenter v. Taylor, 1 Hilt. 195. Any other construction of the statute would easily enable persons to evade its provisions by the most flimsy devices. Ala. Sup. Ct., July 18, 1888. Foster v. State. Opinion by Somerville, J. PLOWING LANDLORD AND TENANT -WASTE GRASS LAND- INJUNCTION.-In a suit to enjoin defendant from committing waste on the land of his lessor, by plowing certain river bottom set in blue grass for the purpose of cultivating it in corn, where it appears that, by the terms of the lease, all the land of plaintiff was rented to defendant with no restrictions as to its cultivation, except the agreement that "the land rented should be farmed in a way to prevent injury to the same, in so far as injury could be reasonably prevented;" that the land in question had been in corn twelve or fifteen times in the past thirty years; that it was the best husbandry to plow this, as it never washed, as did other portions of the land, but was the best for corn on the place, and of all the fields the most easily reset in grass-an injunction restraining defendant from cultivating the land in corn will be dissolved. The covenant is, to farm without unnecessary injury to the land; that is, to farm it in a husbandlike manner. Whether it is an act of good husbandry to plow up the land which is the subject of this dispute or not, cannot be determined by an inspection of the contract, and resort must be had to the custom among farmers in the neighborhood, and the character of the land itself, the subject of the contract. And both sides, recognizing this necessity, have had resort to numerous witnesses. The plaintiff has introduced a large number of farmers who assert that it would be bad husbandry to plow up this land, and that it would greatly injure the farm, as this is very valuable blue grass sod. While on the other hand the defendant proves that the land in question was the best corn land on the premises, and less liable to wash than the rolling uplands; that it had been in corn twelve or fifteen times in the last thirty years; that it never washed but improved, by any overflow from the river; that the former owner, Beattie, for many years in succession, and Cole, plaintiff's deceased husband, for years, cultivated this very land in corn, and that so far from being an irreparable injury to plow the land, that it was very easily reset in grass, as past experiments with it showed, and that there was still a very large per centum of the arable land besides this in unbroken sod. And when this evidence is considered, together with the contract which rents the farm without any special restriction as to this or any other piece of land, we cannot see any reason why it would be bad husbandry to plow up this piece of ground because it was sod land, any more than any other piece of sod land; and as it clearly appears from the evidence that it was not only the best piece of corn land on the place, but of all the fields the most easily reset in grass, after tillage, it appears to be the best husbandry to plow this, and leave the sod on land liable to wash when broken up, and difficult to reset, in sod. As the custom of the country is to plow up the sod land alternately, and cultivate in corn, and all the grass fields on this place had been from time to time so used, it would not be presumed that the parties to this contract intended to except any one or more of such fields from their contract, unless they so stated in that instrument. Va. Sup. Ct. App., July 26, 1888. Hubble v. Cole. Opinion by Lacy, J. MASTER AND SERVANT-NEGLIGENCE OF FELLOWSERVANT-BRICK-MASON AND CARPENTER.-A corporation building a structure composed in part of brick-work and in part of wood-work, is not responsible for the fall of the masonry upon the carpenter, whereby he was killed, if due care was exercised in selecting the mason, and if there was no reason why he should not be fully trusted as an expert in his business, though his work proved defective, and the carpenter thereby lost his life; the two workmen being co-employees of a common master, and co-operating in their respective departments of labor to a common end, to-wit, the erection and completion of the contemplated structure. The company, a corporation desiring to build a magazine to contain its ammunition for use in blasting, had in its employment a force of carpenters and also a brick-mason. The mason built an arch for this structure; and, after the arch was completed, he was consulted by the carpenters, through their foreman, to ascertain whether it was safe to remove the props that supported the arch temporarily. He pronounced it safe, and the props were removed. While they were engaged in the removal, the arch fell, and one of the carpenters was killed. The widow of the deceased carpenter brought this action to recover damages, and upon the trial the court granted a nonsuit. The question is whether the evidence made a prima facie case of negligence against the corporation-negligence in the performance of its legal duties to the deceased carpenter. It is certain that to take the mason's opinion of the safety of the arch was the best means that the corporation had of deciding upon its safety. The mason was reputed to be of the first class, and he was paid by the corporation first-class wages. In the evidence there is no indication of negligence on the part of the corporation in selecting him. He was a proper man to intrust with the execution of the work, and with the decision of its safety. The evidence shows that he made a mistake in his opinion touching its safety. The arch simply a mistake in judgment on the part of a compeproved to be unsafe, but the indications are that it was tent expert in the formation of his opinion. We do not see that this corporation omitted any duty to the carpenter which the law bound it to perform. It was better to take the mason's opinion than that of any other agent, officer, or employee of the corporation. His opinion proved to be erroneous; but the corporation was no absolute insurer to its carpenter against accidents resulting from defective work performed by its mason. All the corporation could do was to exercise reasonable and ordinary care in the selection of a competent mason. And the persons interested, including the master carpenter and the deceased himself, thought that it was safe to go under this arch at the time the casualty occurred. This action could not be maintained on the evidence adduced by the plaintiff, and the judgment of the court granting the nonsuit is correct. The head-note is a part of this opinion. Ga. Sup. Ct., May 14, 1888. Keith v. Walker Iron & Coal Co. Opinion by Bleckley, C. J. NEGLIGENCE GROUNDS.-An agricultural society is liable, to a person lawfully in attendance upon their public exhibition, for injuries caused by their grounds not being in a reasonably safe condition. Plaintiff, being in attendance upon the public exhibition of defendant society, was, while walking along, struck by a person, not an officer or servant of the society, in the act of swinging a mallet to hit a striking-machine, situated upon the grounds with no guard around it. Held, that the question of defendant's negligence and plaintiff's contributory negligence was for the jury. Corporations are liable for their negligent torts, and for the negligence of their officers and servants acting in the course DANGEROUS PREMISES - FAIR of their official duty or employment, in the same manner and to the same extent that individuals are liable under the same circumstances. 2 Mor. Corp. (2d ed.), §§ 725, 734; Boone Corp., § 84. As the defendants were holding a public exhibition in this park, and inviting visitors thereto, it was their duty to render it a reasonably safe place for all persons who might lawfully be there in attendance. It was claimed in argument by defendants' counsel that as the machine was not placed there by the defendants, and its use was foreign to the purposes for which these societies were organized, it was a case of ultra vires, unless the defendants recognized the act as done in their business; that there was no evidence that defendants had any interest in the machine, or that it was there by their permission, or that it was being used with their knowledge. There was evidence however that it was one of a kind of machines commonly exhibited at public gatherings of this kind, and that there were two or three of them on the grounds at this exhibition, and in about the same locality. The court could not assume, as matter of law, that these machines, as well as the peddlers' stands, victualling tents, and places of amusement, were not there by the defendants' permission. If it were not to be assumed that the machine was there by license, it was a question of fact whether it had been so long upon the grounds that the defendants ought, in the exercise of reasonable care, to have known of its presence. Whether it was dangerous or not depended upon its construction, and the mauner in which it was used. These were questions of fact, or at least mixed questions of law and fact, which could not properly have been decided by the court. A remark made by Redfield, C. J., in Vinton v. Schwab, 32 Vt. 614, is applicable to this case: "But when there is no conflict in the testimony, in regard to the particular facts, that will not always make it a mere question of law which the court may determine. If it still rests upon discretion, experience and judgment, it is matter of fact, and not of law merely." It was said by Ross, J., in Whitcomb v. Denio, 52 Vt. 390: "Whatever may be the rule in other States in regard to its being the duty of the court, when the facts are undisputed, to determine, as a matter of law, whether a thing has been done within a reasonable time, or with reasonable care, diligence, or prudence, or to determine any other fact which involves the judgment of the trier upon an existing state of facts and circumstances, it has been the almost universal practice in this State, from the earliest recollection of the oldest members of the court and bar, to submit such question to the determination of the jury." Fassett v. Roxbury, 55 Vt. 555. The only departure from this practice was in the often quoted case of Briggs v. Taylor, 28 Vt. 180. A case in point, as illustrative of the one under consideration, is Lax v. Corporation of Darlington, 31 Moak Eng. R. 543, cited in plaintiff's brief. In that case the defendants were owners of a cattle market, and in the market-place they had erected a statue, around which they had placed a railing as a fence. The plaintiffs attended the market with their cattle, and occupied a particular site, for which they paid a toll. A cow belonging to them, in attempting to jump the railing, injured herself, and died from the injuries. The jury found that the railing was danger ous. The court held that the defendants, having received toll from the plaintiffs and invited them to the market with their cattle, were in duty bound to keep the market in a safe condition, and that an action would lie for the plaintiff's loss. It is insisted by defendant's counsel, to entitle the plaintiff to recover, it must appear affirmatively that he was in the exercise of at least ordinary care for his own protection, and that it did affirmatively appear that he was exercising no care at all, but, on the contrary, was guilty of gross negligence. To enable the plaintiff to make out a case, it was incumbent on him to show that the defendants were negligent in regard to this machine, and that no want of care on his part contributed to the happening of the accident. Not that he could testify, or that witnesses could testify in his behalf, that he was in the exercise of due care; but the burden was on him to produce such a state of the evidence as would enable the trier of the fact to say that the defendants were negligent, and that his own conduct was prudent. Walker v. Westfield, 39 Vt. 246; Bovee v. Danville, 53 id. 183. The plaintiff's evidence shows the manner in which he was walking past this machine, not knowing of its existence. Whether he was in the exercise of that degree of care which the law requires, or whether he was guilty of contributory negligence, was a question of fact for the jury, under proper instructions from the court. Hill v. New Haven, 37 Vt. 501. Vt. Sup. Ct., Sept. 10, 1888. Selinas v. Vermont State Agr. Soc. Opinion by Tyler, J. Judgment reversed, new trial granted, costs to abide event-Aaron Snell, respondent, v. George Leavitt, appellant.-Order affirmed and judgment absolute ordered for the defendant on the stipulation with costs-William H. Kingsland, surviving trustee, appellant, v. Mayor, etc., of New York, respondents.— Order reversed and judgment entered on the report of the referee affirmed with costs-William N. Eckerson, appellaut, v. Schuyler G. Crippen, respondent.— Judgment reversed, new trial granted, costs to abide event-Wilhelmina Friedman, administratrix, appellant, v. Dry Dock, East Broadway and Battery Railroad Company, respondent.- -Judgment affirmed with costs-William Sperb, administrator, respondent, v. Henry F. McCoun, Jr., impleaded, etc., appellant.— Judgment affirmed with costs-Charles W. Watson, administrator, respondent, v. Broadway and Seventh Avenue Railroad Company, appellant.-Judgment affirmed with costs-John Kerius, administrator, respondent, v. Lake Shore, etc., Railway Company, appellant.. -Judgment affirmed with costs-In re Probate of will of Rev. James McKoy.-Judgment affirmed with costs-In re Judicial Settlement of Execu tors of Hollgarten.-Judgment affirmed with costsHannah E. Hives, administratrix, respondent, v. Brooklyn City Railroad Company, appellant.-Judgment affirmed with costs-Warran R. Dix, administrator, appellant, v. James W. Hozier, respondent.-Order affirmed with costs-William H. Delmore, respondent, v. Richard L. Owen, appellant.-Order in first action approved with costs; appeal in second action dismissed, both in favor of General Jourdan-In re Petition of James J. Powers v. James Jourdan.Order affirmed with costs-People, ex rel. Helen C. Beardslee and another, appellants, v. Henry A. Dolge, highway commissioner, etc., respondent.- -Appeal dismissed with costs-Charles J. Tilton, respondent, v. Susan M. Vail and others, impleaded, etc., appellants.- -Order affirmed with costs-People, ex rel. Peter B. Dunnigan, appellants, v. Police Commis sioners of Brooklyn, respondents.-Order affirmed with costs-In re Accounting of Simon Dantzig, assignee, etc.-Motion for reargument denied-Adams v. Arkemburgh. Ordered: That this court take a recess from this date to Monday, the 26th day of November, 1888, at 10 o'clock, A. M., at the Capitol, in the city of Albany, then to continue the call of the present calendar. E. O. PERRIN, Clerk, The Albany Law Journal. THIS this subject which we have seen in several years is Journal. contained in "The Medical Jurisprudence of Inebri ALBANY, NOVEMBER 10, 1888. CURRENT TOPICS. ety, being papers read before the Medico-Legal Society of New York, and the discussion thereon," which is just issued. It is however more medical than legal, but still none the less interesting, because we all know what a lawyer must say, but there is no telling what a doctor may say. Here we find fourteen papers by doctors and doctresses, all sounding THIS is a temperance page- so it may be read or the same note of excessive humanity; two by lonely skipped, as the patron pleases. The phenom- lawyers, Mr. Clark Bell and Mr. Anthony R. Dyett, ena of mind will never cease to be of engrossing who merely tell us what the law is, without atinterest to lawyers, for by these, motives are often tempting to vindicate it, and one who merely into be judged and responsibility measured. The forms us of the fact that Jews do not often get divergence between the legal and the medical the- | drunk-which is no news to us. These are folory of responsibility, as affected by insanity or lowed by a discussion by eight doctors and four ap drunkenness, has been growing wider in modern parent lawyers, among the latter being Mr. Austin times. The reason for this is that the physician Abbott and Judge Noah Davis. One thing noticesees in every person of abnormal mind only a pa- able in the papers of the doctors is their ignorance tient, while the legislator and the lawyer see in or vague information of the state of the law on the him only a subject of government for the safety of subject. Thus, Dr. Norman Kerr of London seems society. Medical doctrines have done much to alle- | to think that one who commits a criminal act while viate the old "wild beast" theory of the law, but in delirium tremens is held responsible to the penalthe danger is that if allowed free scope they would ties of the law. This is very bad indeed. Dr. Bell render society the prey of men's uncontrolled appe- would have told him better, as indeed he does in tites and passions. It seems as if every physician | his paper. To illustrate the length to which unin the land were uttering his say upon this absorb-restrained and immoderate science will lead a mere ing topic. To keep up with the constant flow of student we quote the following passages: "The tracts on the subject would tax the powers of great reason why the dipsomaniac is not responsiBabbage's calculating machine. But while law-| ble is, because he is not master of his desire to drink.” yers have with nearly absolute unanimity settled (Dr. Mann of Brooklyn - italics his.) "Inebriates down on the "right and wrong "test as the near- should be forbidden marriage always, both by pubest approximation to the greatest safety for the lic opinion and by law, for the disease will breed greatest number, the physicians, although almost its like." (Dr. Mann.) "If the subject of inherequally unanimous in rejecting that test, are by no ited inebriety is to be punished for tasting a madmeans agreed upon a substitute. The radical de- dening intoxicant, which will provoke a paroxysm, fect in the position of the physicians is that of par- so ought a gouty subject for indulging in a glass of ticularity instead of generalization; they demand a port." (Dr. Kerr: And so he ought if the port rule for each case, while the most the law can ac- makes the gouty man kick his pregnant wife to cord in administration is a general rule for all cases. death.) “A young man, during the delirium of Thus, in a pamphlet now before us, on "Moral and a paroxysm of methomania, murdered both his Criminal Responsibility," by Dr. Bryce of Tusca- father and mother, and cut out their hearts, which loosa, Ala., it is said: "The man's acts must be he roasted and ate. He was brought into court for regarded in every instance as the inevitable out- trial, but Judge Gray declined to try the case, on come of his organization, that is to say, of certain the ground that his court had no jurisdiction in varying states or conditions of the nervous centers the case of a crime for the commission of which which preside over the actions of the individual there could be no motive in the human heart." and control his movements and volitions;" and (Dr. Rogers of New York: We venture to say Dr. Hughes of St. Louis says: "The law, it is that Judge Gray did nothing of the sort, or at all clear, in every case of inebriate misdemeanor, should events he never assigned such a silly reason. go behind the police records and look into the well might the judge have declined to try Mrs. neurological history, and discover, if possible, the Druse because she chopped up her husband and fed ancestral and immediate organic factors which may him to the pigs.) These extracts will serve to exmodify or make impossible full responsibility, by emplify the modern tendency of mere theorizing. fettering or preventing the normal volition." This The keynote of nearly all these papers is that is all well enough, but the only safe rule, after all, drunkenness is a disease, and crimes which come of in the opinion of most lawyers, is the right and it should not be punished. It seems to us very unwrong test. If a human being is so wicked that he safe and unjust to say that a man able to know will not, or so unfortunate that he cannot rule himself right from wrong, but whose will is so feeble that by this law, unless he is deprived of the power to he really could not help it, shall not be punished judge between right and wrong by mental disease, for homicide, and that the only protection to sociinvoluntarily produced, society can no longer safely ety is in forbidding the begetting of such weaktolerate him, and he must somehow be put out of the minded persons. That sort of an argument would way. Decidedly the most interesting discussion of perhaps be a solace to Tristram Shandy, but to no VOL. 38-No. 19. | As one else, except a doctor, in or out of fiction. It is quite refreshing to turn from such deliverances to such wholesome utterances as the following: "If you go into the police courts Sunday morning, and ask to have discharged every man who has been arrested for drunkenness to let him go on the principle that inebriety is a disease, and asked to have that view carried into general effect the result would be that the occasional convivial offenders, the men who are guilty of crimes committed under exceptional passion, under exceptional temptation, under exceptional stimulus, would be sent to jail, and the men who are wholly given over to it, and are going to do it again and again, would be set free." (Mr. Abbott.) "If the fact of being drunk was an excuse for committing a crime, every man would get drunk who contemplated committing a crime." "A voluntary demon, who has produced a condition in himself by his own act, which is not the disease known as insanity, is not excused; and just so it would be if that condition had been produced by any other kind of disease." "A drunken intent is just as guilty as a sober intent." (Judge Davis.) All the medical reasoning and theorizing on this subject, so far as drunkenness is concerned, simply tends to confirm us in the opinion garded as extreme, no doubt, by most-that drunkenness is too leniently regarded in the law. There seems something defective in the theory that if a man is a little drunk, but knows what he is about, and kills a man, his drunkenness is no excuse whatever; that if he is voluntarily a good deal drunk, so that he does not really intend any harm, he may not be punished so much as if he were sober; and if he is voluntarily very drunk for a series of years and falls into delirium tremens, the poor man may not be punished at all! For a homicide, as the result of one hour's debauch, the offender's punishment is mitigated; for one, as the result of years' debauch, he may get off scot free. In our opinion, a man who voluntarily deprives himself of the faculty of judging between right and wrong should be judged by the result to society. The result of infection to society is just as serious from varioloid as from small-pox, and by no sane logic can you punish one who by exposing himself contracts the varioloid, and forgive him if he gets the small-pox. This is really putting a premium on drunkenness. re But however men may differ about these theories, it would seem as if there could be no reasonable difference of opinion that it is the serious duty of society to prevent men from becoming sick of the disease of drunkenness, by high license or prohibition, or restraint upon immigration, or whatever the most effectual device may be. We differ - indeed, teetotally from Mr. Ellinger, totally who writes about the sobriety of the Jews: "Beware of handing over the question of temperance to the mercies of the politician." "You can educate the citizen to be a man of temperate habits, but you cannot legislate him into it." This is not true in - spirit, whatever it may be in letter. You can at least diminish intemperance and crime by legislation, as has been proved over and over again. The recent high-license statistics in Philadelphia prove that the arrests for drunkenness there have been cut down by legislation very largely - more than a third, if we recollect right. There is no dispute about the awful fact that nine-tenths of all the crime, poverty and general misery in the whole world is due to excessive indulgence in alcohol, nor that the people in this country spend seven hundred millions annually to gratify it. The pamphlet before us states that "fifty-five per cent of all our insanity and sixty-eight per cent of all our idiocy springs directly or indirectly from inebriety alone." Also that "of every two hundred and fifty immigrants one is insane, while but one of six hundred and sixty-two natives is insane." It is no wonder that public attention is so fixed upon this great evil that the temperance question has assumed a vast political importance. If intemper ance could be suppressed men would not need to talk about the tariff. The perplexity would be to know what to do with each working man's "surplus." When we see the doctrine of prohibition so earnestly advocated and receiving so large a vote in the southern States, and enacted in some of the western States, we may be sure that it means busiThe time has gone by when an advocate of high license, or even of prohibition, was regarded as a puritan fanatic. It is indeed a struggle between the respectable and the non-respectable part of the community- not simply between "church and saloon," as is frequently said, but between orderly society and the saloon. When we consider the class of people to whom our society is paying this terrible tribute it makes the impression of indignation still deeper. Who are the twelve hundred gin-mill keepers in this city, for example, that decent society is compelled to maintain courts, and prisons, and lunatic asylums, and almshouses, for their victims? What honest dollar do they earn? What atom of public good do they? Some idea of them may probably be obtained from a pamphlet entitled "Chattel Mortgages on Saloon Fixtures in New York City," by Robert Graham, which shows that from October, 1887, to October, 1888, there were filed 4,710 chattel mortgages on saloon fixtures, of the alleged value of $4,959,578, an overwhelming proportion of which are held by brewers. One firm hold 600, of the value of $310,134; another 208, of the value of $442,063; and eighteen others, 1,100, of the value of $949,939. The pamphleteer well calls these mortgagees "liquor barons," and truthfully asserts that the mortgagors 66 ness. are men of straw, to be manipulated as occasion arises." And yet we are told that legislation has nothing to do with the 10,000 rum shops in New York city, and that we must let them run until education, and philanthropy, and discreet restraint upon marriage, and treating drunkenness as a mere disease, shall work a reform. There is at least one thing that legislation can do-it can make the A keepers of these hells pay dear for their sulphur-In Bigelow v. Insurance Co., 93 U. S. 284, the conso dear that some of them will be forced to shut up shop. We should be glad to see effectual prohibition, or even a half-way approach to it, but as that is probably unattainable in this State at present, we should be glad to see high license. No local option- we do not believe in letting any county choose for itself without regard to the general interests of the State, as to the price of license. That doctrine may be defensible as to the question of license or no license, but not as to the price of license. We believe that Mr. Graham is right in his concluding words, in which he characterizes this traffic as "a trade, which in its gross excess is sapping the best life of the country - a trade which boasts that in this city alone it can cast or control 40,000 votes a trade which has been shown to be practically in the grip of twenty men who have, at least, the power to use it for their own purposes · a trade whose abnormal growth means poverty and slavery, and its limitation thrift and freedom". -a trade which does no human being any good, and is the source of almost all the sin and misery in the world. In short, we believe that rumsellers and drunkards are conspirators against society. IN NOTES OF CASES. N Scarth v. Security Mut. Life Society, Iowa Supreme Court, October 4, 1888, it was held that a life insurance policy which by its terms is to become void "if the member shall commit suicide, felonious or otherwise, sane or insane," is avoided by the suicide of the insured, committed while he was temporarily insane, and in no manner conscious or responsible. The court said: "There has been much discussion in adjudged cases as to the effect of conditions in life insurance policies which provide that the policy shall be void if the assured comes to his death by his own hand. At one time policies provided, generally, that they should be void in case of death by 'suicide,' or 'by one's own hand,' without more. It was held that these terms were synonymous, and conveyed the same idea. It has been held quite generally by the courts of this country that this general condition in a policy referred to an act of criminal self-destruction, and did not apply to an insane person who took his own life. Association v. Waller, 57 Ga. 533; Hathaway v. Insurance Co., 48 Vt. 335; Insurance Co. v. Graves, 6 Bush, 268; Newton v. Insurance Co., 76 N. Y. 426; Scheffer v. Insurance Co., 25 Minn. 534; Insurance Co. v. Terry, 15 Wall. 580; Insurance Co. v. Rodel, 95 U. S. 232; Insurance Co. v. Isett, 74 Penn. St. 176; Insurance Co. v. Moore, 34 Mich. 41; Eastabrook v. Insurance Co., 54 Me. 224. This being practically the settled law applicable to these conditions, insurance companies adopted a more specific condition as to liability in cases of death by suicide, and there are a number of cases where the language of the policy is substantially the same as that employed in the policy under consideration. dition in the policy was that it should be void if the insured 'shall die by suicide, sane or insane.' In an action on the policy the defendant pleaded that the insured died from the effect of a pistol wound, inflicted upon his person by his own hand, and that he intended by this means to destroy his life. The plaintiff, by reply, pleaded that the insured when he inflicted the pistol wound upon his person by his own hand was of unsound mind, and wholly unconscious of the act. It was held that a demurrer to the replication was properly sustained The effect of the holding was that the policy wa. void, notwithstanding the self-destruction was accomplished at a time when the insured was wholly unconscious of the act. There is no substantial difference between that case and the one now under consideration. In Streeter v. Society, 31 N. W. Rep. 779 (Supreme Court of Michigan), the policy provided that it should be void if the insured should die by his own hand, sane or insane.' The insured died from the effects of a pistol-shot wound inflicted by himself. The evidence tended to prove that when he shot himself he was insane. Witnesses expressed the opinion that his mental condition was such that he was unable to control any of his physical actions that might have been called upon to carry out any one of his impulses. It was held that the insurance company was not liable upon the policy. In support of the rule announced by these cases see also Pierce v. Insurance Co., 34 Wis. 389; Salentine v. Insurance Co., 24 Fed. Rep. 159; Riley v. Insurance Co., 25 id. 315; Adkins v. Insurance Co., 70 Mo. 27; and Penfold v. Insurance Co., 85 N. Y. 317; S. C., 39 Am. Rep. 660. In some of these cases language is employed which would seem to indicate that if the insured was not at the time conscious of the physical nature and consequences of the act the policy might not be void. We think however that the better rule, and the logical conclusion of all the above cited cases, is that the condition in the policy was intended to include self-destruction, no matter what the mental condition of the insured was at the time of the act which caused the death. course the policy never was intended to include death by accident, as by taking poison by mistake, the accidental discharge of a gun or pistol held in the hands of the insured, or the like. It means all suicidal acts, whether such as are denominated as criminal, or such as are the offspring of insanity. We have not had a brief or argument by counsel for appellee in this case, and have been compelled to make somewhat of an examination of that side of the question without these aids, and our conclusion is that the demurrer to the petition was properly sustained." See N. W. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Hazelett, 105 Ind. 212; S. C., 55 Am. Rep. 492. Of In Murphy v. Bolger, Vermont Supreme Court, October 6, 1888, it was held that one is liable in an action of ejectment for a projection of his roof over |