MALICIOUS MISCHIEF, in law, any in jury done to the person or property of another with deliberate malice. This is an indictable offense both in Great Britain and the United States. The comprehensive English Black Act (so-called from its preamble that "several ill designing and disorderly persons have of late associated themselves under the name of blacks'') with others of a like kind were in 1861 codified (24 and 25 Vict., ch. 97) into an act which extends malicious mischief to buildings, fish ponds and other real estate, as well as to most classes of personal property. To constitute this offense, real not merely legal malice must be proved, such as is defined by Blackstone, "a spirit of wanton cruelty or black and diabolical revenge*; or, as defined by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, "a spirit of cruelty, hostility or revenge.* This spirit must
be cherished by the offender not against a third party, but against the party whose person or property has been injured. Some States of the Union make secrecy a necessary element in the offense, others generalize the offense as im plying merely the infliction of unlawful injury. If the injury was inflicted in the discharge of official duty, or under an honest sense of jus tification, this is sufficient defense to secure ac quittal. The offense may be either a misde meanor (q.v.) or a felony (q.v.) according to its circumstances. Consult Bishop, 'Commen taries on the Law of Statutory Crimes' (3d ed., Chicago 1901) ; McClain, 'Treatise on Criminal Law, as Now Administered in the United States' (Chicago 1897) ; and Harris, 'Prin ciples of the Criminal Law' (London 1899).