If you find a burglar in your house in the middle of the night have you a right to shoot him dead? one law says, not unless you have reason to fear for your life, but there are a good many people who are disposed to think that in this regard "the law is an ass." The burglar, they think, must take the risks of his calling, and one of them is the risk of being shot dead, even though the shot be fired only in defence of the property he is trying to steal. The question has been raised anew by the case of a young man named George Durance. He was sleeping on business premises on which two burglarious attempts had been recently made, and he was consequently armed with a revolver. Two men broke into the house, and he fired three shots at them in the dark, killing one of them while the other made his escape. Obviously he had no opportunity of seeing whether the men were armed or whether his life was in danger; but it is quite possible that if he had struck a light or wanted to glean information on that point it would have been all up: with him. Most people will think that he acted sensibly and courageously, and will waste no semnathy on the burglar. Durance was of course formally charged at the Police Court with "unlawfully killing," but the Treasury Solicitor, wisely realising that no jury would conviet in such a case, declined to proceed, and Duranco was discharged.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.