The jury find that the defendant felled a tree into the stream and allowed it to remain as an impediment to navigation for five days. The intent not being of the essence of the offense, the law presumes that the defendant intended the natural consequences of its own act, and if nothing more appeared the defendants would be guilty. S. v. Barnard, 88 N.C. 661; S. v. King, 86 N.C. 603; S. v. Kittelle, 110 N.C. 560. The jury say, however, in another portion of their verdict, that the act was not done willfully, but in the interest of their mills.
Moreover, Williams contradicts many decades of controlling precedent, as the common-law definition of involuntary manslaughter has been essentially unchanged for at least a century. See, e.g.,State v. Vic. Limerick, 146 N.C. 649, 651, 61 S.E. 568, 569 (1908) ("if the prisoner was ... guilty of culpable negligence in the way he handled and dealt with the gun, and by reason of such negligence the gun was discharged, causing the death of deceased, ... the prisoner would be guilty of manslaughter"); State v. Barnard, 88 N.C. 661, 664 (1883) ("if workmen throw stones, rubbish, or other things from a house ... by which a person underneath is killed, if they look out and give timely warning beforehand to those below, it will be accidental death; if without such caution, it will amount to manslaughter .... It was a lawful act, but done in an improper manner"); State v. Leak, 61 N.C. 450 (1868) (if the defendant " gave the [child] laudanum ... [but] did not know the character of the laudanum as a poison, etc., it would be no more than manslaughter"). And, since the advent of the automobile, the law of involuntary manslaughter has been applied much as it is today: