The prisoner’s assignments of error assail the following parts of his Honor’s charge to the jury: 1. “Now, gentlemen, in this *633ease, as I understand it, and as I understood tbe admissions of tbe parties, there are only two questions before you: Whether the defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree or guilty of murder in the second degree; they admit that he would be guilty of manslaughter under the facts proven in this case.” 2. . . . and if, according to the admissions, you fail to find him guilty of murder in the first degree, or guilty of murder in the second degree, then you would return a verdict of guilty of manslaughter because that is admitted.” 3. “If you fail to find him guilty of murder in the first degree, then you pass to murder in the second degree, and if you find him guilty of murder in the second degree beyond a reasonable doubt it is your duty to say so, and if you fail to find him guilty of murder in the second degree beyond a reasonable doubt, then I instruct you to return a verdict of guilty of manslaughter.” 4. . . . “and so that you might know what manslaughter is in passing upon the other degrees, two degrees, I will define it for you. As I charged you, the defendant admits that he is guilty of manslaughter, and perhaps in passing upon that fact you ought to know what manslaughter is to aid you, if it does; so I will give you such information as you may he entitled to as to the other degrees.” 5. “Now, the burden is cast on him and he admits he is guilty of manslaughter without offering any defense as to that.” 6. “If, however, the deceased assaulted the prisoner, that is, if she laid her hand upon him against his will, or struck or choked him, and the prisoner killed the deceased in the heat of passion and under those circumstances, he would not be guilty of more than the crime of manslaughter, and he admits that.” 7. “I have just defined to you so that you might know what manslaughter is, so that it might be some guidance in passing upon the other two degrees of murder that I gave you heretofore, and the instruction as to that remains the same.”
These excerpts are not to be treated as instructions detached from and unrelated to other portions of the charge. In S. v. Exum, 138 N. C., 599, 619, this Court approved and applied the following quotation from 2 Thompson on Trials: “It (the charge) is to be considered as a whole in the same connected way in which it was given, and upon the presumption that the jury did not overlook any portion of it. If, when so construed, it presents the law fairly and correctly to the jury, it will afford no ground for reversing the judgment, though some of the expressions, when standing alone, might be regarded as erroneous.” Thus considered the charge is free from reversible or prejudicial error. The trial judge carefully defined the three degrees of felonious homicide and pointed out respectively their constituent elements and distinctive features. He clearly and repeatedly stated the principle which imposed upon the State the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the prisoner was'guilty of murder in the first or the second degree and which imposed *634upon tbe prisoner, who admitted the killing, the burden of satisfying the jury of circumstances sufficient to reduce or mitigate the offense to manslaughter. In connection with almost every instruction relating to manslaughter he told the jury that as to this offense the prisoner admitted his guilt. This statement is the gravamen of the errors assigned; in fact, it raises the single question which we are called upon to decide.
In considering the exceptions we must bear in mind the important fact that there is no evidence whatever of self-defense. In a prosecution for homicide among the basic elements of self-defense are an absence of fault on the part of the prisoner, actual apprehension and reasonable grounds to apprehend that his life was in danger or that he was in danger of great bodily harm, and that it was necessary or that it reasonably appeared to the prisoner to be necessary to kill the deceased in order to save his own life or to protect himself from bodily harm. S. v. Crisp, 170 N. C., 785; S. v. Baldwin, 184 N. C., 789; S. v. Evans, 194 N. C., 121. None of these elements appears in the evidence; none was testified to by the prisoner.
In the absence of evidence of self-defense, the prisoner, having admitted that he killed his wife, was guilty of murder in the first degree, or murder in the second degree, or manslaughter. The State offered ample evidence to prove murder in the first degree — evidence of express malice, preparation, deliberation and premeditation; and the prisoner’s version of the homicide shows him to be guilty, at the least, of manslaughter. He testified that after a conversation between him and his wife she turned to leave him and he struck her; a combat ensued, in which he cut her with the razor and took her life. True, he said she was trying to cut him; but he was the aggressor; he not only entered into the combat willingly; he provoked it. The homicide according to his testimony was certainly nothing less than manslaughter. S. v. Baldwin, 152 N. C., 822; S. v. Kennedy, 169 N. C., 288; S. v. Merrick, 171 N. C., 788; S. v. Evans, 177 N. C., 564. The judge could safely have told the jury that the prisoner upon his own testimony was guilty at least of this offense. We do not see how under these conditions the prisoner was prejudiced by the instruction that he admitted he was guilty of manslaughter.
It is manifest, however, that his only hope was to reduce the homicide from murder to manslaughter, and that he did make this admission. Four or five times in charging the jury the judge referred to it. At no time during the progress of the charge or before the verdict was returned did the prisoner’s counsel object to the instruction or suggest or intimate that the admission had not been made. In Barefoot v. Lee, 168 N. C., 89, the Court remarked in reference to an admission of counsel that if the plaintiffs wished to challenge its correctness they should have called *635it to tbe attention' of the court at the proper time, and that it was too late, after verdict, to avail themselves of its incorrectness as a matter of right. The situation is similar to.that which arises out of the misstatement of a contention. The trial court is entitled to an opportunity to restate any contention and to correct any erroneous statement of an admission, and failure to request a correction or to give a special instruction on the point eliminates the assignment of error. S. v. Steele, 190 N. C., 506, 510. We find
No error.