"ACCIDENTAL" MURDER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 1 June 1914, Page 6

"ACCIDENTAL" MURDER.

Can murder be held to be accidental? 'At first -sight it would seem not, for deliberation enters into murder, and ■. what is done by design cannot, one ■would think, be accidental. However, the highest court in Great Bri-tain-is of the contrary opinion. This was the way of it. A master in an Irish school detected one of his pupils .in a theft, and prevented others from playing in a certain ; shed. The aggrieved boys, to "get even" with him, arranged to attack him, and two of ;tbem assaulted him so violently that his skull was fractured, and he died the same; day> The question then arose: I)id he meet his death by "accident," "arising out of and in the course of his employment ? If the answer , was "Yes," his mother' was entitled to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1906. The CountyCourt Judge said "Yes,": and ;so did the Irish Court of Appeal, but the case went up to the House of Lords. That tribunal upheld the findings of the lower Courts, but only by the narrowest of margins. The four.Ayes were the Lord. Chancel] or, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Loreburn (ex-Lord Chancellor"), and Lord. Shaw, and the three Nc-es were Lord Dunedin, Lord Atkinson, and Lord Parker—also great lawyers., Lord Dunedin contended that "accident" was the very antithesis of design, and that as the schoolmaster was murdorod he, could not be considered to have met with an accident,,] but the majority regarded as an accident for the purposes ,of the statute' any injury not expected or designed! by J-ne employee. Lord Loreburn put the case for the Ayes in a way that will appeal to many laymen. "S»ppose some ruffian laid a log on the rails and wrecked a. train, was the guard who had been injured excluded from the Act? Was a gamekeeper who was shot by poachers excluded from the1 Act? There was design enough in either case, and of the worst kind. In either case he would have; tiiought, if the nature of the man's employment was looked at, it might be said he was injured by what was accident in that employment." And dp not many teachers take the risk— infinitesimal.though it may be—of injury from a criminal-minded pupil?