The prisoner urged that he had given the young woman an innocent draught for the purpose of amusing her, as she had threatened to destroy herself, unless enabled to conceal her shame; and the Jury returned a verdict of _not guilty_. The prisoner had been previously tried on the _first_ section of the statute[55] for the capital charge, in administering savin to Miss _Goldsmith_ to procure abortion, she being then quick with child.[56] In point of fact, she was in the fourth month of her pregnancy. She swore, however, that she had not felt the child move within her before taking the medicine, and that she was not then quick with child. The medical men in their examinations, differed as to the time when the fœtus may be stated to be quick, and to have a distinct existence; but they all agreed that in common understanding, a woman is not considered to be quick with child till she has herself felt the child alive and quick within her, which happens with different women in different stages of pregnancy, although most usually about the sixteenth or eighteenth week after conception. _Lawrence, J._ said, this was the interpretation that must be put upon the words _quick with child_ in the statute; and as the woman in this case had not felt the child alive within her before taking the medicine,—he directed an acquittal. It cannot be necessary here to repeat that the popular idea of quick or not quick with child is founded in error;[57] yet as Acts of Parliament are not often drawn, and seldom even reviewed previous to their passing, by those whose profession, science, trade, or business, would best enable them to convey their meaning with distinctness; and as penal statutes must be construed strictly, and according to the ordinary and obvious meaning of the words, we must be content to recognise a distinction in law which does not exist in nature. There is, however, another peculiarity in the two sections which are founded on this distinction of _quick_ or _not quick_, which calls for immediate attention; in the first of these, that which applies to women quick with child, and in which the offence is made a capital felony, there is no mention of _using any instrument or other means whatever_, but the crime is confined to _administering_ any deadly poison, or other noxious and destructive substance or thing; while in the clause against the minor offence the use of _instruments or other means whatsoever_ is expressly included. Now we shall have occasion hereafter to show that medicines internally administered can seldom produce abortion, but that the effect can be infallibly secured by instruments; the most probable mode therefore of committing the crime appears to be protected by the most penal clause.