10 
✓ 
those under section 53 and the departmental regulations 
are misdemeanors. 
FEDERAL JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS. 
The offense of setting fire to timber, etc., on the public 
domain may be committed, even if the fire is started on 
adjoining private land. Judge Wellborn, United States 
District Court for Southern California, in his charge to 
the jury in the case of the United States v. Henry Clay 
(fire trespass on the Cleveland National Forest) stated as 
follows: 
You are further charged that it is immaterial whether 
the fire of October 19, 1909, mentioned in this indictment, 
originated on private land, if it was set wilfully, and if, in 
the course of nature and in view of all the surroundings, 
the said fire would reasonably be expected to be com¬ 
municated to the public domain. A man has no lawful 
right to set fire to his own property, if he has reason to 
believe or intends that such fire will be communicated to 
the property of others and destroy it. 
With respect to the meaning of the word “ wilful ” in 
section 52, above quoted, Judge Whitson’s instructions 
(United States District Court for Colorado) to the jury in 
the case of United States v. Fisher (fire trepass on the 
Colville National Forest) were as follows: 
And, as to the third count, whether he wilfully set on 
fire or caused to be set on fire the timber, slashings, or 
grass there growing. It is charged in the third count that 
the act was maliciously done; but it is not necessary, under 
the statute, that malice be shown. It is necessary to 
show that the act must have been wilful; that is, inten¬ 
tional. Not with intent, however, to burn the public 
domains and destroy property, but purposely built the 
fire or purposely left it unattended or purposely failed to 
extinguish it. The purpose does not apply to the result, 
but to the acts charged; for one wilfully, knowingly doing 
an act is presumed to intend the consequences which 
naturally may be expected to flow from such an act. 
STATE FIRE LAW. 
The California State law relating to forest fires (section 
384 of the Penal Code as amended by the 1923 session of 
the legislature) provides as follows: 
