MALICIOUS MISCHIEF. In its broadest sense, malicious or mischievous physical in jury to the rights of another or to those of the public." Whether it was an indictable offense at etmunon Taw is disputed; but it has lung been a purely statutory offense both in England and in the States. One of the leading English statutes is known as the Black Act, from a state ment in the preamble that "several ill-designing and disorderly persons have of late associated themselves under the name of blacks." This and a large number of other statutes were replaced in 18111 by a criminal consolidation act (24 and 23 Viet., e. 97), which, with its amendments, ex tends the offense of malicious mischief to mali cious injuries to most buildings, to fish-ponds, and various other classes of real property, and to almost any species of personal property. In the Irnited States most of the State statutes are as sweeping and detailed in their provisions as those of England. In a few jurisdictions, how ever, the offense is confined to a limited class of injuries to personal property.
The intent with which the injury is inflicted must be malicious. As a rule, that term is used in this connection in its ordinary sense; that is. actual malice, not technical legal malice, must be shown. Aeording to Blackstone, the injury :mist he done "either out of a spirit of wanton cruelty or black and diabolical revenge." The Supreme
Court of Massachusetts has declared that malice, in this connection, is "not sufficiently defined as the willful doing of an act prohibited by law for which the defendant has no lawful excuse, but the jury must be satisfied that the injury was done out of a spirit of cruelty, hostility, or revenge." Moreover, the malice must he entertained against the owner of the property, not against a third person or the property injured. These doctrines are modified in sonic States, especially where the statutes define the offense to consist in the willful infliction of unlawful injury. Occasionally a statute makes secrecy in doing the harm an essential element of the crime. In all jurisdic tions it is a perfect defense that the injury was inflicted in the discharge of official duty, or under an honest though mistaken claim of right. The offense is ordinarily classed as a misdemeanor (q.v.), although, at times, it is declared a felony (q.v.). Consult: Harris. Principles of the Crimi nal Lam (London, 1899) ; Bishop, Commentaries on the Lam of Statutory Crimes (Chicago, 1901) ; 1leClain. Treatise on the Criminal hair, as Administered in the United Stales (Chi cago, 1897).