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really believe himself to have a Title, of which the Jury are still better ...... Judges than the
Judges Court <add> Presiding Magistrate, it is not fit he should suffer as for a Theft, because it gives affords no inference that
he will be guilty of one in future, & because the other neighbourhood not understanding it to be a
Theft have no apprehension of him in consequence, neither is his acquittal any presumption
to others of impunity.
It is plain therefore, that, not withstanding
the propounded Definitions which Law-writers
have taken upon them to
give in two lines which they in order to spend employ
twice as many pages in contradicting
it, no definitive proper explanation can
be given of Larceny till after
two cases in which the characteristic
punishment does not attach
upon the offence of Theft shall
have been made known. explained
I have said "without the consent of any one" who has — to distinguish the case in question from that of
Fraud [of all kinds viz. Forgery Coining - false pretences - cheating at play]
of anyone "Who has viz i.e.; a pretence of Title to distinguish it from that case of false pretences
where it is the Servant or Relation of the owner & not the owner himself + + who has a pretence of Title for
that purpose from whom the thing in question is obtained
[QU] Moveable evidence of any kind of property.
This Title has been gradually complicated to the proximity at which it now rests to the extent which the Definition includes by
Statutes following the titles of which <add> in the Table of which therefore if [this it definition] should be received, the Law
may be disencumber'd. +
+ Then come with Anomalous doctrine
restrictive: then with anomalous
ampliative
I will suppose the reader to have cast his Eye over this enormous heap of regulations; or being the Titles of
which form an assemblage of words much larger than the definition which is proposed to include the purport
, mak more than the purport of them all. and I will make two questions :
— In the first place what is the chance that a person about to sally forth in a public
expedition shall possess such a knowledge of the distinction in point of punishment
by them between the stealing of certain articles & certain other articles, as to be able to
tell whether under what branch of those distinctions a given article which may chance to fall in his way shall be comprized.
In the second place If the answer be none as I think it will be admitted it must be, "none" I will then ask
of what use or effect are any of these distinctions?
That the nature character of this offence in
other respects — being fixed by the definition,
the amount value of the thing
taken is the only adequate &
serviceable measure of the mischief
of the different acts which are may be comprised
under it.
They certainly have all had an effect for a time, & it is this — Where a knot of Thieves have acquire
by practise a certain degree of adroitness in the pilfering of a particular article separation of professions & a sort of regular
in it has been established in that article between them and their receivers, the disproportionate
frequency of losses to the proprietors of that article of that regard that of their owners & any other has attracted the attention of the Legislature:
a Law has been made taking that article out of the general mass, and affixing
to it a peculiar punishment; of its own which usually there is nothing like doing things at once
has been Death — the novelty of the Law has convey'd it to the notice of those agents
when it has been levelled, they have relinquished been driven from that course, by the dread of it of been exterpated: by its execution
the momentary purpose of the moment has been answer'd, & of that only: in a few years short lapse of time it has gather'd
itself sunken it into/ aggregated it to the general chaos & made it become as if it had never been.
No difference to be made between
taking a thing & the evidence of title to that thing
which evidence may not be single or conclusive
& so no loss be occasioned — because
the loss or not loss does not depend
upon the taker: so that the impossibility
of offending in this latter instance
is not to be lessened by
a difference of punishment in its
terror.
According to some, every Lawyer is a Thief: according to those who contrived these
every Thief's a Lawyer.
THEFT. AEstimation. [BR][8][
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