By a recent English statute [78], when any parent shall wilfully neglect to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid, or lodging for his child, in his custody, under the age of fourteen, whereby the child’s health shall have been, or shall be likely to be, seriously injured, he shall be guilty of an indictable offence punishable by imprisonment. Charles Downes was the two-year-old child of a member of the sect of Peculiar People. These people never call in medical aid or give medicines: to do so would be contrary to their religious opinions; but if any is sick they call in the elders of the church, who pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; then they hope for a cure, as they have thus literally complied with the directions in the 14th and 15th verses of the 5th chapter of the Epistle of St. James. This child was ill for months; the usual course was pursued by his father; no medical aid was obtained, although easily obtainable. The illness was misunderstood, and, although he was taken care of and well supplied with food, the child died. The father was indicted for manslaughter, and the |39| jury found that the death was caused by the neglect to obtain medical assistance, that the father _bona fide_ (though erroneously) believed that medical aid was not required, and that it was wrong to use it. The Judge entered a verdict of guilty, and the Court held—under this statute—that a positive duty was imposed upon the father to provide adequate medical aid when necessary, whatever his conscientious scruples might be, and that that duty having been wilfully neglected by the prisoner, and death having ensued from that neglect, he was properly convicted of manslaughter [79]. It had been held by Pigott, B., in a case against these same Peculiar People, and also by Willis, J., that, at common law, there was no legal duty upon a father to employ a physician for his sick child [80]. It is not enough to shew neglect of reasonable means for preserving or prolonging the child’s life, to convict of manslaughter, it must be shewn that the neglect had the effect of shortening life. It will not do merely to prove that proper medical aid might have saved or prolonged life and would have increased the chance of recovery, but that it might have been of no avail [81]. In this case the father, perhaps, might have been convicted of neglect of duty as a parent, under the statute (per Stephen, J.). Medicines and medical aid are necessaries for which an infant may legally contract, and for which he can render himself liable. In Massachusetts, it was held that he would not be liable merely because his father was poor and unable to pay [82]. |40|