MAY 6 1966

I. MEDICAL Jurisprudence.-Poisoning.—-Capt. Do-
NELLAN'S CASE.

II. CODIFICATION OF THE COMMON LAW OF MASSACHU

SETTS.

Report of the Commissioners appointed to consider and
report upon the practicability and expediency of
reducing to a written and systematic code the Com-
mon Law of Massachusetts, or any part thereof.
[Made to His Excellency the Governor, January,
1837.]

III. STIPULATIONS IN ADMIRALTY. OPINION OF JUDGE
WARE ON THE NATURE And effect of them.

1

17

51

71

IV. CODIFICATION AND REFORM OF THE LAW, No. 5.
V. TRIAL BY JURY, IN QUESTIONS OF PERSONAL FREEDOM, 94
VI. DISTRIBUTION AND DEPOSITE OF THE SURPLUS REVE-
NUE OF THE UNITED STATES. Opinion of Judge
Shepley.

DIGEST OF ENGLISH CASES.

Common Law.

Comprising 2 Adolphus & Ellis, Part 4; 3 Adol. &

Ell., Part 1; Neville & Manning, Part 4; 2 Bing-
ham's New Cases, Part 4; 2 Scott, Part 2; 1 Mee-
son & Welsby, (in continuation of Crompton, Mee-
son & Roscoe,) Parts 1, 2, and 3; 1 Tyrwhitt &
Granger, Parts 2 and 3 ; 4 Dowling's Practice Cases,
Parts 4 and 5-all Cases included in former Digests
being omitted.

113

121

Equity.

Containing 2 Clark & Finnelly, Parts 2 and 3; 3
Mylne & Keen, Part 2; Mylne & Craig, Part 1;
and 1 Younge & Collyer, Parts 3 and 4.

DIGEST OF AMERICAN CASES.

Principal cases in 5 Paige's Reports, Court of Chan-
cery, New York; Wright's Reports, Supreme Court
of Ohio; Gilpin's Reports, District Court of the
United States, for the District of Pennsylvania.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

139

152

244

Reports on the Abolition of Capital Punishment; re-
printed by order of the House of Representatives,
from the Legislative documents of 1835 and 1836. 236
Report of Cases at Law and in Chancery, decided by
the Supreme Court of Ohio, during the years 1831,
1832, 1833, 1834, taken from original minutes. By
John C. Wright, late one of the Judges of said
Court.
A Practical Treatise on the Law of Slavery, being a
compilation of all the decisions made on the subject
in the several Courts of the United States, and State
Courts; with copious notes and references to the
statutes and other authorities, systematically ar-
ranged. By Jacob D. Wheeler, Esq. Counsellor
at Law.

NOTICE.

248

252

AMERICAN JURIST.

NO. XXXIII.

APRIL, 1837.

ART. I.-MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE.-POISONING.

CAPT. DONELLAN'S CASE.

[From the MSS. of Professor Ashmun.]

THERE is perhaps no other mode by which the crime of murder can be committed, that in general implies so much depravity and wickedness of character in the criminal as by poisoning. When a crime is committed in the fury of ungovernable passion, however unjustifiable that passion may be, and although it may not be such as to reduce the crime in the eye of the law from the grade of murder to that of manslaughter, we cannot but soften our resentment against the guilt of the criminal with some mixture of tenderness for the frailty of the human character. But where the crine is the result of cool deliberate contrivance, as in poisoning, it almost necessarily must be, there is nothing to mitigate the guilt of the criminal.

Deaths by poison must in general, if not always, in the nature of things, be either accidental or by malice-either excusable homicide or murder. It is scarcely conceivable that poison should be administered under circumstances to imply such a degree of criminality as to amount to manslaughter without including such a malicious design as to constitute murder.