says,

nance of the city for punishing such conduct, and why? Because such conduct in such a place is calculated to excite terror and alarm among the citizens. Lord Holt if a number of men assemble with arms in terrorem populi, although no act be done, it is a riot. On the same principle an indictment was sustained for riotously kicking a foot-ball in the town of Kempton. It was an amusement, but accompanied with such circumstances of noise and tumult as were calculated to excite terror and alarm among the inhabitants of the town."

A riot is a tumultuous disturbance of the peace by three or more assembled to carry out an intent, and afterwards actually carrying out the same to the terror of the people.

It is necessary to constitute a riot that three or more persons be engaged. For two persons to fight with each other on the street is not a riot. And the three must do the same act- by this being meant, they must be engaged in the same intention. In tearing down a house, for example, one rioter breaks down a door, another knocks in a window, a third hands a crow bar. Here they of course do individual acts of different kinds, but they are all caused by the common intent to demolish the house. We have seen that the riot is the third step- the execution of the intention. Ante, p. 131. But the doing of any one act in consummation of the intention is sufficient to make the rout a riot, even though the whole purpose is not carried out. Some parties in Maine having assembled to ride an obnoxious citizen on a rail, seized him and were starting him off when he was rescued by his friends. Nevertheless they were considered guilty of riot. State v. Snow, 18 Me. 346.

At common law, a rout and riot must proceed from an unlawful assembly, and the test in the first is the progress made in the execution of the design for which the last came together. Under some American statutes it has held, however, that to constitute a riot there need not have been an unlawful assembly in the first instance - and, therefore, it is sufficient under such statutes to constitute a riot that two or more persons being together, should do an unlawful act with force or violence against the person or property of another. Dougherty v. People, 5 Ill. 179.

An affray is the fighting by mutual consent of two or more per-sons in a public place to the terror of the people. The place must be public, and, therefore, a field surrounded by a dense wood, a mile away from any highway or other public place, does not lose its private character by the casual presence of three persons, two of whom engage in a fight. Taylor v. State, 22 Ala. 15.

CONSPIRACY- TO DO ACT NOT CRIMINAL.

SMITH v. PEOPLE.

[25 Ill. 17.]

Two men and a woman living in Chicago agreed to procure a girl named Lizzie Engles to have carnal connection with a certain man. They used no violence, but by coaxing and presents, they endeavored to accomplish their purpose. They failed, however, and as individually they had committed no crime, the three were indicted for conspiracy. And in this way they were sent to the penitentiary.

"It is," said the chief justice, "indictable to conspire to do an unlawful act by any means, and to conspire to do any act by unlawful means.

What is an unlawful act? If the term unlawful means criminal or an offense against the criminal law, these parties are not indictable, for seduction is not by our laws punishable as a crime. But by the common law governing conspiracies the term is not so limited. Conspiracies to accomplish purposes which are not by law punishable as crimes, but which

are unlawful as violative of the rights of individuals, and for which the civil law will afford a remedy to the injured party, and will at the same time and by the same process punish the offender for the wrong and outrage done to society, by giving exemplary damages, beyond the damages actually sustained, have in numerous instances, been sustained as common-law offenses."

CONSPIRACY-DOING LAWFUL ACT IN UN

LAWFUL WAY.

COMMONWEALTH v. EBELLE.

[3 S. & R. 9.]

The German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Philadelphia was divided against itself. From the beginning of its organization the services had always been conducted in the German language, but as the years rolled on a party grew up in the church that preferred English. The other half of the congregation opposed it stoutly, but the advocates of English increased in number year by year. The German party, fearing that the innovation would be carried out at the next annual meeting, met together and agreed among them

selves to fight, to defend their language with their bodies and lives, and to make blood flow if the English language was forced upon them.

The German party were indicted and convicted for conspiring to do a perfectly lawful act, viz., opposing the introduction of the English language in the church, in an unlawful way, viz., at all hazards and by violent means.

A conspiracy is a combination by two or more persons by concerted action to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose, or some lawful purpose, by criminal or unlawful means. The phrases "unlawful purpose " and " unlawful means," not being susceptible of an exact definition, makes this crime one of very wide extent, and a convenient trap in which to catch wrong-doers who have engaged in criminal combinations. Three classes of conspiracies are known to the law.

1. Where the purpose is to commit a crime, as for example, to conspire together to rob or murder, or commit a burglary.

2. Where the purpose is lawful but the means resorted to are illegal, for example, to combine together to support a cause believed to be just by perjured evidence, or to break into another's house in order to obtain one's own property. The German Lutheran Church case above, is a good illustration of this division.

3. Where the purpose of the conspiracy is to effect a wrong—though not such a wrong as when perpetrated by a single individual, would amount to an offense against the criminal law. Here, nevertheless, the conspiracy is indictable. Joel Johnson and Albert Smith agreed together to charge William Parker with being the father of a bastard child, in order to extort money from him. It was held that they were guilty. Johnson v. State, 26 N. J. (L) 312. So if two or more persons agree that one of them shall be robbed by the others in order that they may obtain a statutory reward for a conviction, they are guilty of conspiracy. So, generally, to conspire to wrongfully injure or prejudice others -an individual, a body of men or the public, as the case may be, is indictable.

Smith v. People, is an excellent illustration of this division.