serves, "There may be some difficulty in giving credit to so marvellous a diathesis: yet, examples of its existence, and of its leading to a migratory and fatal combustion are so numerous, and so well authenticated, and press upon us from so many different countries and eras, that it would be absurd to withhold our assent." "It can no longer be doubted," says Dr. Gordon Smith, "that persons have retired to their chambers in the usual manner, and in place of the individual, a few cinders, and perhaps part of his bones, were found." Inflammable eructations are said to occur occasionally in northern latitudes, when the body has been exposed to intense cold after excessive indulgence in spiritous liquors; and the case of a Bohemian peasant is narrated, who lost his life in consequence of a column of ignited inflammable air issuing from his mouth, and baffling extinction. This case, as well as others of the same kind, is alleged to have arisen from phosphuretted hydrogen, generated by some chemical combination of alcohol and animal substances in the stomach. What truth there may be in these relations I do not pretend to say. They wear unquestionably the aspect of a fiction; and are, notwithstanding, repeated from so many quarters, that it is nearly as difficult to doubt them altogether as to give them our entire belief. There is one thing, however, which may be safely denied; and that is the fact of drunkards having been blown up in consequence of their breath or eructations catching fire

from the application of a lighted candle. These tales are principally of American extraction; and seem elaborated by that propensity for the marvellous for which our transatlantic brethren have, of late years, been distinguished.

Upon the whole, this subject is extremely obscure, and has never been satisfactorily treated by any writer. Sufficient evidence appears to me to exist in support of the occurrence, but any information as to the remote or proximate cause of this singular malady, is as yet exceedingly defective and unsatisfactory.

In a memoir lately read before the Académie des Sciences, the following are stated to be the chief circumstances connected with spontaneous combustion:

"1. The greater part of the persons who have fallen victims to it, have made an immoderate use of alcoholic liquors. 2. The combustion is almost always general, but sometimes is only partial. 3. It is much rarer among men than among women, and they are principally old women. There is but one case of the combustion of a girl seventeen years of age, and that was only partial. 4. The body and the viscera are invariably burnt, while the feet, the hands, and the top of the skull almost always escape combustion. 5. Although it requires several fagots to burn a common corpse, incineration takes place in these spontaneous combustions without any effect on the most combustible matters in the neighbourhood. In an extraor

dinary instance of a double combustion operating upon two persons in one room, neither the apartment nor the furniture was burnt. 6. It has not been at all proved that the presence of an inflamed body is necessary to develope spontaneous human combustions. 7. Water, so far from extinguishing the flame, seems to give it more activity; and when the flame has disappeared, secret combus

tion goes on. 8. Spontaneous combustions are

more frequent in winter than in summer. 9. General combustions are not susceptible of cure, only partial. 10. Those who undergo spontaneous combustion are the prey of a very strong internal heat. 11. The combustion bursts out all at once, and consumes the body in a few hours. 12. The parts of the body not attacked are struck with mortification. 13. In persons who have been attacked with spontaneous combustion, a putrid degeneracy takes place which soon leads to gangrene."

In this singular malady medicine is of no avail. The combustion is kept up by causes apparently beyond the reach of remedy, and in almost every case, life is extinct before the phenomenon is perceived.

CHAPTER XIII.

DRUNKENNESS JUDICIALLY CONSI

DERED.

Not only does the drunkard draw down upon himself many diseases, both of body and mind, but if, in his intoxication, he commit any crime or misdemeanour, he becomes, like other subjects, amenable to the pains of law. In this respect, indeed, he is worse off than sober persons, for drunkenness, far from palliating, is held to aggravate every offence: the law does not regard it as any extenuation of crime. "A drunkard," says Sir Edward Coke, "who is voluntarius demon, hath no privilege thereby; but what hurt or ill soever he doth, his drunkenness doth aggravate it." In the case of the King versus Maclauchlin, March, 1737, the plea of drunkenness, set up in mitigation of punishment, was not allowed by the court. Sir George Mackenzie says he never found it sustained, and that in a case of murder it was repelled Spott versus Douglas, 1667. Sir Matthew Hales, c. 4. is clear

against the validity of the defence, and all agree that "levis et modica ebrietas non excusat nec minuit delictum." It is a maxim in legal practice, that "those who presume to commit crimes when drunk, must submit to punishment when sober." This state of the law is not peculiar to modern times. In ancient Greece it was decreed by Pittacus, that "he who committed a crime when intoxicated, should receive a double punishment," viz. one for the crime itself, and the other for the ebriety which prompted him to commit it. The Athenians not only punished offences done in drunkenness with increased severity, but, by an enactment of Solon, inebriation in a magistrate was made capital. The Roman law was, in some measure, an exception, and admitted ebriety as a plea for any misdeeds committed under its influence: per vinum delapsis capitalis pœna remittitur. Notwithstanding this tenderness to offences by drunkards, the Romans, at one period, were inconsistent enough to punish the vice itself with death, if found occurring in a woman. By two acts passed in the reign of James I., drunkenness was punishable with fine, and, failing payment, with sitting publicly for six hours in the stocks; 4 Jac. I. c. 5, and 21 Jac. I. c. 7. By the first of these acts, Justices of the Peace may proceed against drunkards at the Sessions, by way of indictment; and this act remained in operation till the 10th of October, 1828, at which time, by the act of the 9 Geo. IV. c. 61, § 35, the law for the suppression of drunkenness was repealed, without