its lands in the western or north-western States or Territories ; but in the States of Florida, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana there are still large tracts of land which may be bought at the minimum price of $1.25, or at the double minimum price of $2. 50 per acre. The laws providing for the reservation and sale of town sites on the public lauds are found in title 32, chapter 8, of the revised statutes of the United States. Persons who desire to found a city or town may acquire title by purchase to the extent of the tract occupied for town purposes, depending upon the number of occu pants, viz., 100 to 200 inhabitants, 320 acres ; 200 to 1000 inhabit ants, 640 acres ; 1000 inhabitants, 1280 acres; and 320 acres for each. additional 1000 inhabitants, not exceeding 5000 in all. If the town be incorporated, the entry must be made by its mayor or legal representative if unincorporated, by the county court acting as trustee for the use and benefit of the several occupants. The patent is issued to the mayor or jivlge in trust for the purchaser, and the State or Territorial legislature must provide the mode of distribution of the lots. Mineral lands are subject to exploration, occupation, and purchase by citizens or those who have made declaration of intention to be come citizens of the United States. Indefinite occupation, without purchase, is secured under some circumstances by certain annual expenditures upon a mining claim. There is no restriction by United States laws of the number of locations one man may make or own by purchase from other locators. The present area of vacant surveyed Government lands in the United States is about 134,600,000 acres, the area uusurveyed being 1,080,000,000 acres. The public lands referred to in this article are found only in the States of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Wisconsin, and the Territories of Ariz ona, Dakota, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Throughout these States and Territories the land laws are uniform. When Texas was admitted into the Union the disposal of its public lands was reserved to the State, and it has therefore a land system of its own, which, although rather com plicated, does not differ essentially from the land policy of the United States as indicated above. Under the laws of Texas, every person who is the head of a family and without a homestead may acquire title to 160 acres of land, by living upon it and cultivating it for three years ; and every single man over the age of eighteen years may so acquire title to 80 acres. " Every person over the age of eighteen years, who is a citizen of tli3 State of Texas, and who shall hereafter in good faith settle upon and occupy any part of the unappropriated public domain, not exceeding 160 acres, shall have the right to purchase the same at the sum of $1 per acre. But this right of pre-emption is not conceded to any one who is the owner of 160 acres of land in Texas, or who abandons a residence on his own land in that State to take up a residence on the public lands. The extensive school lands of Texas are purchasable by actual settlers in tracts of 80 to 160 acres at their actual value, to be determined by appraisement, " but in no case for a less price than $1.50 per acre." (E. P. H.)
HOMEYER, KARL GUSTAV (1795-1874), was born August 13, 1795, at Wolgast, a small town in Pomerania, which at that time wa? still Swedish territory. After a four years stay in Sweden, whither his father, a merchant, had txken him in 1806, and where he may have laid the foundation of that knowledge of the languages and laws of the Xorth which is so conspicuous in his later works, he was in 1810 received into the house of his uncle Ruhs, the learned historian, who had just been called to the professor ship of history at the newly-founded university of Berlin. He subsequently went through the course of law study at the universities of Berlin, Gottingen, and Heidelberg (1813- 1817). It was in Berlin especially that he was introduced to the principles of the so-called historical school of the science of law by Savigny and Eichhorn, who were his principal teachers. In 1821 he settled as a privat-docent at the university of Berlin, where he was promoted to an extraordinary professorship in 1824, and to the ordinary German law chair in 1827. His principal works are his edition of the Sachsenspiegel (in 3 vols., containing also soms other important sources of Saxon or Low German law), which is still unsurpassed in accuracy and sagacity of research, and his book on Die Haus- imd Hofmarken (1870), in which ho has given a history of the use of trade marks among all the Teutonic nations of Europe, and which is full of important elucidations of the history of law and also contains valuable contributions to the history of art and civilization. In 1850 Homeyer was elected a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, in the Trans actions of which he published various papers exhibiting profound learning (" Ueber die Heimath/ 1852; "Gene- alogie der Handschriften des Sachsenspiegels," 1859; " Die Stadtbiicher des Mittelalters," 1860; "Der Dreissigste," 1864, &c.). He died October 20, 1874.
HOMICIDE, in law, is the act of killing a human being, whether such act be criminal or not. Blackstone distinguishes three kinds of homicide (1) justifiable, (2) excusable, and (3) felonious.
The most important case of justifiable homicide is the execution of a criminal in due course of public justice. This condition is most stringently interpreted. "To kill the greatest of malefactors deliberately, uncompelled, and extra- judicially is murder. . . . And further, if judgment of death be given by a judge not authorized by lawful commission, and execution is done accordingly, the judge is guilty of murder" (Stephen s Commentaries, book vi. c. iv.). The execution must be carried out by the proper officer or his deputy: any person executing the sentence without such authority, were it the judge himself, would be guilty of murder. And the sentence must be strictly pursued: to execute a criminal by a kind of death other than that to which he has been judicially condemned is murder.
Homicide committed by an officer of justice in the course of carrying out his duty, as such, is also justifiable; e.g., where a person resists a legal arrest and is killed in the struggle; where officers in dispersing a riotous assemblage kill any of the mob, &c. In these cases the homicide must be shown to have been absolutely necessary. Again, homicide committed for the prevention of forcible and heinous crime, such as violent robbery, or murder, or house-breaking during the night, is justifiable.
Excusable homicide is homicide committed either by misadventure or in self-defence. In the former case, where a man in the course of doing some lawful work, accidentally and without intention kills another, the homicide is excused; cjj., shooting at a mark and undesignedly hitting and kill ing a man. The act must be strictly lawful, and death by misadventure in unlawful sports is not a case of excusable homicide. Homicide in self-defence is excusable when the slayer is himself in immediate danger of death, and has done all he could to avoid the assault. Accordingly, if he strikes and kills his assailant after the assault is over, this is not excusable homicide. And if the assault has been premeditated, as in the case of a duel, the death of either antagonist is murder, and not excusable homicide. The excuse of se defendendo covers the case in which a person in defence of others whom it is his duty to protect children, wife, master, &c. kills an assailant. It has been con sidered doubtful whether the plea of self-defence is avail able to one who has himself provoked a fray, in the course of which he is so pressed by his antagonist that his only resource is to kill him.
