for negligently
keeping his fire." "For the injury is the same, although this
mischance was not by a common negligence, but by misadventure."
/1/
The above-mentioned instances of the stick and shooting at butts
became standard illustrations; they are repeated by Sir Thomas
Raymond, in Bessey v. Olliot, /2/ by Sir William Blackstone, in
the famous squib case, /3/ and by other judges, and have become
familiar through the textbooks. Sir T. Raymond, in the above
case, also repeats the thought and almost the words of Littleton,
J., which have been quoted, and says further: "In all civil acts
the law doth not so much regard the intent of the actor, as the
loss and damage of the party suffering." Sir William Blackstone
also adopts a phrase from Dickenson v. Watson, just cited:
"Nothing but inevitable necessity" is a justification. So Lord
Ellenborough, in Leame v. Bray: /4/ "If the injury were received
from the personal act of another, it was deemed sufficient to
make it trespass"; or, according to the more frequently quoted
language of Grose, J., in the same case: "Looking into all the
cases from the Year Book in the 21 H. VII. down to the latest
decision on the subject, I find the principle to be, that if the
injury be done by the act of the party himself at the time, or he
be the immediate cause of it, though it happen accidentally or by
misfortune, yet he is answerable in trespass.
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