The ear that followed the deceased when he started home was occupied by the defendant and Wade McDaniel. It had only one seat. The defendant, who drove the ear, sat at the left and McDaniel at the right. Rufus Allison and Jack Jones were on the left running board. The deceased was walking on the right-hand side of the road, and when the parties overtook him he was killed by pistol shots fired from the car.
Both the defendant and McDaniel testified that McDaniel had shot and killed the deceased with a pistol. For this reason the defendant has no just cause of complaint on the ground that the court did not submit to the jury, as a distinct phase of the evidence, the question whether the defendant himself had not fired the fatal shots. His testimony taken with that of other witnesses raised the vital question whether he had aided and abetted McDaniel in the commission of the crime; and upon this theory the case seems to have been tried.
A person concerned in the commission of a felony may be a principal in the first or in the second degree. A principal in the first degree is the person who actually perpetrates the deed, and a principal in the second degree is one who is actually or constructively present when the crime is committed and aids and abets another in its commission. “The law, however, recognizes no difference between the offense of the principal in the first degree and of the principal in the second; both are equally guilty. And so immaterial is the distinction considered in practice, that if a man be indicted as principal in the first degree, proof that he was present aiding and abetting another in committing the offense, although his was not the hand which actually did it, will support the indictment; and, on the other hand, if he be indicted as principal in the second degree, proof that he was not only present, but committed the offense- with his own hand, will support the indictment.” 1 Archbold’s Criminal Prac. and Pleading (13) (14). In S. v. Whitt, 113 N. C., 716, the Court quoted from Wharton’s Criminal Law (9 ed.), 221, to the effect that “the distinction between principals in the first and second degrees, is a distinction without a difference.” In the same case it was held that a principal in the second degree may be convicted even where the principal in the first degree has been acquitted; and in S. v. Jarrell, 141 N. C., 722, it is said that one principal may be convicted when the other has not been tried. The law relating to accessories before the fact has no application. S. v. Jones, 101 N. C., 719. So *195if McDaniel shot and killed the deceased under circumstances that would make him guilty of felonious homicide and the defendant was present encouraging, aiding and abetting the perpetration of the deed, the defendant and McDaniel would be guilty of the same degree of crime. S. v. Whitson, 111 N. C., 695. It is manifest that this is what his honor had in mind when he referred to McDaniel’s act, if he killed the deceased, as a controlling factor in the trial of the defendant.
A person may aid and abet the commission of a homicide by giving help to the perpetrator; by encouragement in acts or words; by inciting, advising, or counseling the deed; by concert of action; and by other unlawful acts naturally resulting in death. S. v. Powell, 168 N. C., 134. Indeed, “Where the bystander is a friend of the perpetrator and knows that his presence will be regarded by the perpetrator as an encouragement and protection, presence alone may be regarded as encouraging.” 1 Wharton’s Or. Law, see. 211a; S. v. Jarrell, supra; S. v. Cloninger, 149 N. C., 567.
Let us keep in mind the testimony of the defendant, and that of McDaniel, that McDaniel had) killed the deceased .with a deadly weapon. There is unquestionable evidence that the defendant was present aiding and abetting in the perpetration of the deed — evidence, in fact, that from their first meeting with the deceased they were acting in concert. Each of them was armed with a pistol; at the fatal moment they were together in the car; together they left the scene of the homicide; and in their flight, as a witness for the State testified, the defendant was heard to say in the presence of McDaniel, “We killed a man and must get away from here.”
It was under these circumstances that the trial court imposed upon the State the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt “that the defendant was aiding and abetting and encouraging by his acts and by his presence and conduct the killing of the deceased on the part of Wade McDaniel,” and, in that event, likewise imposed upon the defendant the burden of showing to the satisfaction of the jury such facts and circumstances as would mitigate or excuse the offense committed by the defendant and McDaniel as eoprincipals. It will be seen that the instructions which are the subject of the defendant’s third, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth assignments of error, were intended to apply to the latter proposition, and in this view they embody a correct statement of the law.
The defendant was not convicted of murder, but of manslaughter. Under the charge to the jury the verdict is equivalent to a finding that McDaniel’s act was manslaughter and that the defendant was guilty in the same degree. We are of opinion that the first and second assignments present no sufficient cause for a new trial. Whether a serious *196question would have been raised if the defendant had been convicted of murder in the first degree is a matter with which we are not concerned.
It may be noted that the instructions referred to in the first and second assignments are predicated upon the finding that the defendant and McDaniel were coprincipals, and not that they acted independently, as was contended in S. v. Orr, 175 N. C., 773, and S. v. Greer, 162 N. C., 640.
No error.