which, though it will avail little against the mischiefs to be dreaded from causes like those to which the poison in question may be attributed, will yet be found of great service in the hands of the well-intentioned and the competent:
In the present state of the law, the compassing or contriving the imprisonment of the community is not an indictable offence. Individual cases must be prosecuted and upon those the Crown prosecutor must proceed.
257
It is true our choice is limited, yet further by the necessity of charging either an administering or an attempting to administer. I may be limited to the first: for such has been the judicial construction of the enactment with respect to the second, that it is really hard to say whether it is not become practically obsolete, although twenty years have not elapsed since the passing of that enactment.