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LARCENY.
ANOMALOUS DOCTRINE RESTRICTIVE 1
If we now measure the amplitude of the excepted members of these capricious divisions, by applying to them them to the celebrated natural division into the 3 grand classes or Kingdoms as they are called the Animal, the vegetable and the Mineral If after
any one thinks it is compleat: There is nothing here of a base nature but the intellects of certain Lawyers, who destituted themselves of all natural knowledge & ignorant of it's value, have refused the protection of the Law for their property to men more better deserving of it than themselves. he will find himself very much disappointed: The most voluminous laws are not the most compleat. so true it is that
voluminousness in Jurisprudence is a thing very different distinct from & often opposite to universality of comprehension either accuracy or comprehension. perfection
So far are all the offences from that come properly under this title of Larceny from having their
punishments duly adjusted, that there are many thing is got a great multitude of very valuable articles the stealing of which is nor under any
circumstances deemed Larceny at all:
It does no honour to the Jurisprudence of a enlightened nation that the immense collection of natural knowledge which is its ornament & it's glory, may be ransacked with impunity of its choicest treasures because nothing in it is good to eat. In the first place — every thing 1st some things + + 1 Hale 512 - 3 Coke Just. 109 that it are it is at the same time wild by nature (tho' actually time), reclaimed as it is called & not
fit for food:
If any body asks me of what are those things are? I answer from Ld Hale Bears
In the second place Foxes & Ferrets; & from Ld Coke Apes Monkies & Polecats; & from both the Whelps or Calves of those the animals which each has respectively enumerated: if I am asked what besides, I answer I know nothing of the matters for similitude
of Law [not specified] is to be collected from similitude of reason: & it is plain enough that reason
has here nothing at all to do with the matter. in the affair.
We are however relieved from this embarassment by the Author of the Commentaries, according
to whom 4 Comm. 236 "some" in this place means "all"; & this is probably the construction decision which a question of this sort would receive
from the Judges accustomed to encourage who are expected to give every encouragement to absurd distinctions made the result of which shall tend, as the phrase is, in favorance
vote. The Statute of ....... has indeed fumigated most of them; but not all.
If this be the case, In the mean time it does no honour to the Jurisprudence of a learned & philosophical nation
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by which one way or other a victim is saved from a sanguinary Jurisprudence.
that that invaluable immense collection of natural knowledge than which it has not a more signal
ornament, may be ransacked with impunity of it's choicest treasures, because there is nothing in
it which is good to eat: ... Copper & variety of other articles if it were worth while to search them out, would be found to smell as rank as ever nor is it easy to say why the many persons who devise their sole a very comfortable livelyhood from these supposed
worthless animals should have their property less secure than that of their neighbours The reason is not any where assigned but it might easily be supplied. is easy to supply it in the same style.
The truth of the matter is, that in the age in which this conceit was first started, men
were profoundly ignorant regardless of in every thing that relates to natural History, and Judges as much
as the rest. any body.
2dly There are other things which the Law took has taken an antipathy to, & will have nothing to do with & I will have no concern
in protecting from by reason of "the baseness of their nature" which "things" are according to
Lord Matthew Hale, Mastiffs, spaniels, grayhounds, & Blood hounds; By that time the smell of the Realty has gone off. But if he who has sever'd it stays by lets it lye ever so long staying by it all the while, & then carries it off; this is not Larceny: for But so long as he is there the smell will not evaporate: & therefore Hale in his lesser work had made ... &c of a base nature according to Lord S.r Edw.
Coke, Dogs & Cats in general — "Only of the reclaimed Hawk" says the former of these
learned writings writers; "of some things that be fera natura", as of all kind of Faulcons & other Hawks being reclaimed," says the latter, felony
" may be committed "in respect of their noble and generous nature & courage, serving of"
"vitae solatium of Privas, & of noble & generous persons, to make them fitter for great"
employments: Of how close a contexture this argument is must be visible to every one. What Hawks were then to noble & generous persons among our Ancestors
in respect to the vitae solatium, these base creatures called dogs are to
their noble & generous successors; but [whether they have] in what degree these favorite animals have suceeded to the property of fitting them their
masters for great employment is what I shall leave must be left to the learned to determine.
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::j honig & zoonen [lion with vryheyt motif]]] |
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