Inviolability of the Human Body. Whether it is arson for a prisoner to fire a jail for the mere purpose of escaping has been variously decided. Although it would seem the duty of a good citizen to await his trial, and vindication or punishment, with composure, yet some highly respectable courts have allowed so much to the natural longing for liberty of person as to excuse the act and pronounce it not arson. People v. Cotteral, 18 Johns. 118; Jenkins 7'. State, 53 Ga. 33; 2i Am. Rep. 255; State r. Mitchell, 5 Ired L. 350; Delaney т. State, 41 Tex. 60 1. Mr. Bishop says, " Unhappily on this side are the majority of cases." But to the contrary are : Luke t'. State, 40 Alabama, 30; 20 Am. Rep. 269; Smith v. State, 26 Tex. Ct. App. 357; 50 Am. Rep. 773> overruling Delaney v. State, supra. He is bound to stay although the jail is unhealthy and filthy. State v. Davis, 14 Nev. 439; 33 Am. Rep. 563. He may be punished for escaping although he was acquitted of the charge on which he was confined. State v. Lewis, 19 Kansas, 260; 27 Am. Rep. 113. It seems that as one arrested on a charge of crime is presumably innocent, he may not be compelled to sit for his likeness, to be added to the " Rogues' Gallery." If this has not been judicially decided, it was in effect decided by the House of Commons, in 1879, in the case of Mr. Ambrose Fortescue, an American gentleman, incarcerated in Newgate on a charge of forgery, whom
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the governor of the prison manacled and "shored up " and thus took a photographic copy. The home secretary, on the call of the House of Commons, admitted that it was wrong, and against the rules of the prison. The sitter probably did not assume a cheer ful expression. I have not learned that he ever sued the governor for damages for infringe ment of copyright. Probably, after con viction and sentence, a sitting might be enforced without any breach of personal rights. Where the superintendent of a cemetery carelessly and willfully disinterred the re mains of the plaintiff's child, it was held actionable. Meagher v. Driscoll, 99 Mass. 281; 96 Am. Dec. 759. So where one wrongfully dissected the body of the plain tiff's husband. Larson v. Chase, 47 Minn. 307; 28 Am. St. Rep. 370; 14 Lawyers' Rep. Annotated, 85; Foley v. Phelps, i App. Div. 551 (N. Y.); or of his child. Burney v. Children's Hospital (Mass. Sup. Ct. June, 1897). But consult Young v. College of Physicians and Surgeons, 8l Md. 358; 31 L. R. A. 540. Courts are so sensitive at the sight of human corpses that they will not tolerate the exhibition of exhumed human bodies in mere cases of civil contrífct, such as actions on life insurance policies. Wehle v. U. S. M: Ace. Ass'n, .153 N. Y. 116; Grangers' Life Ins. Co. v. Brown, 57 Miss. 308; 34 Am. Rep. 446.
