Arson (Lat. ardere, to burn), at common law, the wilful and malicious burning of another's house. House is to be understood in general to mean a dwelling house, and it included at common law all the outhouses that belonged ' to the dwelling, even though they were not under the same roof or joined to it, as barns and stables containing hay or corn of the owner of the house; and anciently even the burning of a stack of corn was arson. The offence was for a long time and until very lately punished by the English and American law with death. The law on the subject is not now so simple as it once was; for malicious burnings not merely of dwellings, but of churches, warehouses, public buildings, vessels, crops, and many other kinds of property are now made the subjects of express statutory provisions, and usually named arsons; and the subdivisions of the subject are very minute, and the character of the different offences in ', the different cases is very nicely distinguished. Arson is still used as a word of description, but the statutes do not always employ it; and in- deed many of the offences which they refer to were not arsons at common law at all. - The English law as to malicious burnings of all sorts of property has been revised and consolidated i in the single act of 24 and 25 Victoria, ch. 97 (1861). It provides that the unlawful and; malicious setting fire to any dwelling house, | any person being therein, is a felony.

It punishes also the burning of churches or other places of divine worship, warehouses, outhouses, farm buildings, or any building used in carrying on trade or manufacture; crops of hay, grass, corn, or grain, or any vegetable produce, whether cut or standing; woods, coppices, heath, gorse, or furze; stacks of corn, grain, or hay; turf, peat, charcoal, coal mines, and other kinds of property; and the penalty in almost all these cases is penal servitude for life or for not less than live years, or imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor. The statutes in the United States include not only the burning of dwelling, houses, but also the burning of jails, state houses, court houses, school houses and other public buildings, outhouses and edifices of all descriptions, and in some of the states ships and water craft of all kinds. In many of the states recent statutes of this character also provide for cases of burning or setting fire to buildings with' the intent to defraud insurers.

In Louisiana and Maine burning a dwelling house may be punished with death; but generally that penalty has been abolished, imprisonment for life or for a shorter term being substituted in its place. - The statutes of two or three of the states will fairly represent the condition of the American law on the subject. In Maine any person who sets fire to the dwelling house of another, or to any building adjoining thereto, or to any building owned by himself or another, with the intent to burn such dwelling house, and it is thereby burned in the night time, shall be punished with death. But if the accused proves to the jury that there was no person lawfully in the dwelling house at the time, or if the offence was committed in the day time, the punishment shall be imprisonment for life. The statute of California provides that every person who shall wilfully and maliciously burn or cause to be burned in the night time any dwelling house in which there shall be at the time any human being, is guilty of arson in the first degree.

Such burning of any dwelling house the property of another, in the day time, or such burning either in the day or night of any office, shop, barn, stable, warehouse, stack of grain, or standing crop, the property of any other person, or of any church, school house, state house, or any other public building, or any ship, of the value in any case of $50, is arson in the second degree, and is punishable by imprisonment for not more than ten years and not less than one. If any life is lost in consequence of any such burning, the offender is guilty of murder. Any jail or other edifice usually occupied by persons lodging there at night is deemed the dwelling house of such persons. In Massachusetts the statute enacts that if any person wilfully and maliciously burns the dwelling house of another, or any building adjoining such dwelling house, or sets fire to any building by the burning whereof such dwelling house is burned, he shall suffer imprisonment for life; and the same punishment is inflicted on such burning of certain other buildings and of barns and the like structures within the curtilage of a dwelling house, if it is done in the night. If the commission of arson causes the death of any person, the penalty is death; but without that, it is imprisonment from seven to ten years.

In New York, arson in the first degree consists in wilfully setting fire to or burning in the night time a dwelling house in which there shall be at the time some human being; and every house, prison, jail, or other edifice which shall have been usually occupied by persons lodging therein at night shall be deemed a dwelling house. The punishment is imprisonment for life at hard labor. No warehouse, barn, or other outhouse is to be deemed a dwelling house unless it is actually part of one. Arson in the second degree is such burning in the day time of a dwelling house as would be arson in the first degree if done in the night; or the burning in the night time of any building not the subject of arson in the first degree, adjoining to or within the curtilage of a dwelling house, so that such dwelling is endangered. - If a man set fire to a house in the execution of a wicked design to do some other unlawful act - as for example, if, in the burning of his own house to defraud an insurance company, he burns another's - he is guilty of arson. If one sets fire to a hay stack situated so near the house of another that it is likely to carry the fire to that, and it does in fact, he is also guilty.

When the house burnt is said to be another's, it is not meant that it shall be the absolute property of another, but only another's house or dwelling for the purpose of habitation or occupation, and a special property is ordinarily sufficient. As to dwelling houses, it has been held that a building designed for that purpose, but not yet finished and never yet occupied, is not a house of which arson may be committed at common law; and the same doctrine was held in the case of a building erected for a dwelling house, but which was not occupied as such at the time of the burning, and had not been for ten months previously. As to the burning, it is not essential to the offence that the house should be entirely consumed. It is enough if the fire takes effect so as to burn, that is, destroy by. fire, in any degree.