Law Commissioners say, "The ulterior motive by which the taker is influenced in depriving the owner of his property altogether, whether it be to benefit himself or another, or to injure any one by the taking, is immaterial."* And you will agree with me, it would be very absurd were it otherwise. If a man, actuated by malicious feeling, take your property against your will, surely it matters not, in a moral point of view, whether his ulterior disposition of it be for his own pecuniary benefit, or to gratify his revenge the result is the same—your detriment.

In cases of alleged theft by servants, where the property has been pledged, and the pawnbroker's duplicate carefully preserved, it has been frequently urged, on behalf of the servant, that the facts that he merely pledged the goods, and preserved the duplicate, were evidence that his original taking was for a temporary purpose only, he intending to redeem at a future time and restore the property: thus negativing the presumption that his intent was felonious, and with a view wholly to deprive the owner. Such a doctrine is a most dangerous one, and has been very properly so regarded whenever propounded.

The late Mr. Baron GURNEY tried a case of this description, and in summing it up to the jury, that very learned and excellent judge made these wholesome remarks-"I confess," said he, "I think, that if this doctrine of an intention to redeem property is to prevail, courts of justice will be of very little use. A more glorious doctrine for thieves it would be difficult to discover, but a more injurious doctrine

* 1 Report C.L.C. p. 17.

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for honest men cannot well be imagined."* facts should be strong and overwhelming indeed, to avail a prisoner on this ground, for it is not to be endured that a person in whom we place confidence, and to whom we entrust our property, should be permitted to pawn it on the mere speculation that he may be able, at some future day, to redeem and replace it.

I had occasion in the first chapter to mention that one of the consequences attendant upon a conviction for felony is a forfeiture of the felon's goods, and that in some cases the court is empowered to order the restitution to the owner of the property of which he has been deprived. This is a convenient place to remind you of the latter fact, and as it is as well you should know the provisions of the section of the statute which gives that power, I append it in the form of a note.t I likewise add the sec

*The Queen against Phetheon, 9 C. & P. 552.

+ 7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 29, sec. 57, to encourage the prosecution of offenders, enacts, "That if any person, guilty of any such felony or misdemeanor as aforesaid, in stealing, taking, obtaining, or converting, or in knowingly receiving any chattel, money, valuable security, or other property whatsoever, shall be indicted for any such offence, by or on behalf of the owner of the property, or his executor or administrator, and convicted thereof, in such case the property shall be restored to the owner, or his representative; and the court, before whom any such person shall be so convicted, shall have power to award, from time to time, writs of restitution for the said property, or to order the restitution thereof in a summary manner: provided always, that if it shall appear, before any award or order made, that any valuable security shall have been bona fide paid or discharged by some person or body corporate liable to the payment thereof, or, being a negotiable instrument, shall have been bona fide taken or received by transfer

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tion which forbids, under penal consequences, the advertising a reward for the restoration of stolen property, accompanied either directly or indirectly with an intimation that the thief shall not be prosecuted. The compromising or compounding of an offence is punishable much more severely, namely, by imprisonment and fine. Justice abhors everything in the shape of interference with its due and impartial administration ;-if a crime be committed, the whole body of society is aggrieved, and the atonement which is demanded and required is not of a private but of a public nature.*

I now leave the consideration of the subject of larceny, and in so doing allow me to assure you that

or delivery, by some person or body corporate, for a just and valuable consideration, without any notice, or without any reasonable cause to suspect that the same had, by any felony or misdemeanor, been stolen, taken, obtained, or converted as aforesaid, in such case the court shall not award or order the restitution of such security."

*By sec. 59 it is enacted, "That if any person shall publicly advertise a reward for the return of any property whatsoever, which shall have been stolen or lost, and shall in such advertisement use any words purporting that no questions will be asked, or shall make use of any words in any public advertisement, purporting that a reward will be given or paid for any property which shall have been stolen or lost, without seizing or making any inquiry after the person producing such property, or shall promise or offer in any such public advertisement to return to any pawnbroker or other person who may have bought or advanced money by way of loan upon any property stolen or lost, the money so paid or advanced, or any other sum of money or reward for the return of such property; or if any person shall print or publish any such advertisement; in any of the above cases, every such person shall forfeit the sum of fifty pounds for every such offence."

your being able to understand thoroughly the law in reference to kindred offences, will greatly depend upon your acquaintance with those principles to which, in the preceding pages, I have called your special attention.

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CHAPTER III.

OF EMBEZZLEMENT BY CLERKS AND SERVANTS.

CLOSELY allied to the subject of theft by clerks and servants, of which I have already made mention, is that of embezzlement by persons in those capacities. Sir Robert Peel's statute (7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 29, sec. 47), by which the law as it previously existed was clearly defined, and which is in operation at this moment, enacts "that if any clerk or servant, or any person employed for the purpose or in the capacity of a clerk or servant, shall, by virtue of such employment, receive or take into his possession any chattel, money, or valuable security for, or in the name, or on the account of, his master, and shall fraudulently embezzle the same, or any part thereof, every such offender shall be deemed to have feloniously stolen the same from his master," &c.

You have seen that if your clerk or servant have the possession of your property, that is, the care of it on your behalf, and feloniously appropriate it to his own use, he is guilty of stealing. But in that case the property must have been already in your own possession, actual or constructive, otherwise his fraudulent misappropriation would not have been felony. To remedy the defective state of the old law, the legislature passed enactments-the most recent of which I have just laid before you—by which, if your clerk or servant, having authority to do so, receive goods or money on your account,