casioned by
another, without the slayer himself being the proper object of
the _lex talionis_. Such an accident may happen {p.211} either
by the carelessness of the killer, or through that excess and
vehemence of passion to which humanity is incident. In either
case, though blamable, he ought not to be confounded with the
cool and deliberate assassin, and the species of criminality
attaching itself to those acts has been distinguished by the term
_dolus_, in opposition to the milder term _culpa_. Again, there
may be a third species of homicide, in which the perpetrator
being the innocent and unfortunate cause of casual misfortune,
becomes rather an object of compassion than punishment.

"Admitting there may have been a certain degree of culpability in
the panel's conduct, still there is one circumstance which pleads
strongly in his favor, so as to preclude all presumption of
_dole_. This is the frequent practice, whether proper or
improper, of using this amusement in the streets. It is a matter
of public notoriety, that boys of all ages and descriptions are,
or at least till the late very proper proclamation of the
magistrates were, to be seen every evening in almost every corner
of this city, amusing themselves with fire-arms and small
cannons, and that without being checked or interfered with. When
the panel, a poor ignorant raw lad, lately discharged from a ship
of war--certainly not the most proper school to learn a prudent
aversion to unlucky or mischievous practices--observed the sons
of gentlemen of the first respectability engaged in such
amusements, unchecked by their parents or by the magistrates,
surely it can hardly be expected that he should discover that in
imitating them in so common a practice, he was constituting
himself _hostis humani generis_, a wretch the pest and scourge of
mankind.

"There is, no doubt, attached to every even the most innocent of
casual slaughter, a certain degree of blame, inasmuch as almost
everything of the kind might have been avoided had the slayer
exhibited the strictest degree of diligence. A well-known and
authentic story will illustrate the proposition. A young
gentleman, just married to a young lady of whom he was
passionately fond, in affectionate trifling presented at her a
pistol