charge as a whole, it appears to have presented the case fully and fairly to the jury. It is assigned as error that the court directed the jury to return their verdict for Presbrey, one of the defendants, as to the $500 note in suit. But there is no exception to this direction, except as it may be contained in the general exception taken to the entire charge of the court. This character of exception, however, cannot be sustained. It has been held repeatedly by the Supreme Court of the United States, that a general exception to a charge, which does not direct the attention of the court to the particular portions of it, to which objection is made, raises no question for review by an appellate court. Life Ins. Co. v. Union Trust Co., 112 U. S. 250, 261; Burton v. Ferry Co., 114 U. S. 474, 476. And that the whole charge must be substantially wrong before such a general exception will avail for any purpose. Anthony v. Louisville RR. Co., 132 U. S. 172, and cases there cited.

We have, however, been urged to review the charge of the court to the jury, upon the motion made for a new trial, and which was overruled. But a motion for a new trial is not the subject of an exception, and presents, in an appellate court, no question for review.

There is nothing in the case that requires further remark, and we must affirm the judgment.

Judgment affirmed.

WOODWARD v. RAGLAND.

PUNITIVE DAMAGES; EVIDENCE; INTENT; PRINCIPAL AND AGENT; RATIFICATION BY PRINCIPAL OF AGENT'S TORTS; PETIT LARCENY.

1. In addition to compensatory damages, the jury may in actions of tort award punitive damages, if the defendant has acted wantonly or oppressively, or with such malice as implies a spirit of mischief or criminal indifference to civil obligations; but such guilty intention must be shown, in order to charge the defendant with exemplary damages.

2. Punitive damages cannot be assessed against a principal, unless he participated in the wrongful act, or expressly or impliedly authorized or ratified it.

3. In an action of tort by a husband and wife against the proprietors of an extensive retail dry goods establishment and two of their employees, the superintendent of the store and the detective, for the malicious arrest by the detective of the female plaintiff upon a charge of theft, and the search of her person, it is competent, as bearing upon the question of punitive damages, and the mitigation thereof, for the superintendent to testify as to information given him by a clerk, who, at his request made an examination after the arrest, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the article said to have been stolen was actually missing.

4. The defendants in such a case have the right to offer evidence to defeat the plaintiff's claim altogether, and also in mitigation of damages of a punitive nature.

5. In such a case, the proprietors of the store, in order to repel a charge that they had authorized their employee to make the arrest, are entitled to show that from their own knowledge such employee had not prior to the arrest of the female plaintiff accused any one of theft unless he had seen the theft committed.

6. The proprietors of the store, in such a case, for the purpose of rebutting any presumption from the plaintiff's evidence that they authorized or approved the treatment of the female plaintiff by their employee, the detective, have the right to prove that they had no knowledge of the arrest until after its occurrence; that the detective had never been authorized by them to so treat a customer; that so far as they knew he had never done so during his employment; and that they had made diligent inquiries as to his character before his employment; and for the purpose of showing that the employment of a detective was proper under the circumstances, they were entitled to prove the necessity for it as demonstrated by common experience of mercantile houses of the same class as their establishment.

7. In such a case, while evidence that the principals have retained the agent in their employ and have defended him in litigation resulting from his act is admissible to show ratification, it should always be accompanied with a statement by the court of its nature, purpose and weight.

8. Whether petit larceny is in this District a felony, quære.

No. 262. Submitted April 12, 1894. Decided January 22, 1895.

HEARING on an appeal by the defendants from a judgment on verdict in an action for malicious arrest. Reversed.

The COURT in its opinion stated the case as follows:

On the 17th day of April, 1891, the appellees, Fannie C. Ragland and Henry Lee Ragland, her husband, as plaintiffs, filed their declaration in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, against the appellants, S. Walter Woodward, Alvin M. Lothrop, George F. Hendrick, and Charles E. Flinder, as defendants, in which the plaintiffs aver that the defendants, S. Walter Woodward and Alvin M. Lothrop, were partners doing business in the city of Washington as Woodward & Lothrop, and on the 20th day of January, 1891, were the owners of a store for the sale of dry goods and other merchandise, and invited the public into their premises for the purchase of such goods, and the female plaintiff, then unmarried and of the maiden name of Fannie C. O'Hare, by invitation of said Woodward & Lothrop, had entered said store together with her sister, Laura O'Hare, and had made some purchase of merchandise therein, and while she was waiting for the package so purchased to be delivered to her, the defendant Charles E. Flinder, a detective in the employment of Woodward & Lothrop, and acting under their order and direction, assaulted the plaintiff Fannie C. Ragland, and intending to hurt, injure, and aggrieve her, then and there falsely, maliciously, and without cause, publicly charged her with having stolen a diamond ring and a diamond-shaped napkin ring and other articles of value from Woodward & Lothrop, and thereupon in the presence of employees of said store and of numerous visitors and customers there congregated the said Flinder and the said Hendrick with him, also in the employment of Woodward & Lothrop, and both acting under the order and direction and by the authority of said firm, laid violent hands upon the said Fannie, and brutally assaulted her and forced her into a private room and brutally and against her will searched her person and caused her further to be searched by a colored woman in their presence, took her pocket book from her pocket, forcibly detained her

in said room for two hours, used violent, abusive, and insulting language to her, and refused to permit her to communicate with any of her friends or relatives, whereby she suffered bodily injury and was greatly wounded and injured in her feelings and reputation, to her great damage; and further that the said Fannie was at the time of said injury about to be married to the plaintiff Henry Lee Ragland, and was on the 2d day of February, A. D. 1891, married to him; and plaintiff claims damages in the sum of $20,000, and costs.

To this declaration the defendants jointly and severally pleaded not guilty, on which the plaintiffs duly joined issue. The jury returned a verdict against all the defendants for damages in the sum of $15,000. The court overruled a motion for a new trial, but required the plaintiffs to enter a remittitur for $5,000, and the court thereupon gave judgment for the plaintiffs for $10,000, from which the defendants appealed to this court.

Mr. Henry E. Davis and Mr. A. S. Worthington for the appellants:

1. The appellants Woodward & Lothrop cannot be held liable in this action, which is an action of trespass and not of case. The charge in the declaration is that what Flinder and Hendrick did was by order, direction and authority of Woodward & Lothrop; there is no charge of ratification. No order, direction or authority from them is shown by the evidence. The terms of Flinder's employment did not include a right to arrest on suspicion of guilt. And no such order, direction or authority can be presumed. Mali v. Lord, 39 N. Y. 381; Imp. Co. v. Steinmeier, 72 Md. 313; Edwards v. Rwy. Co., 5 C. P. 445: Poulton v. Rwy. Co., L. R. 2 Q. B. 534; Allen v. Railroad Co., L. R. 6 Q. B. 65; Mallach v. Ridley, 43 Hun, 336; Carter v. Machine Co., 51 Md. 290; Bank v. Owston, 4 L. R. App. Cas. 270; Call v. Palmer, 116 U.S. 102.

Assuming that evidence of ratification is admissible in

the case, there is no ratification shown and no evidence of it which should have been considered by the jury. Ratification of a tort assumes a wrong, knowledge thereof, and approval. Whether assent to a trespass after its commission will make the party assenting a trespasser ab initio, dubitatur. But, if so, such assent must be clear and explicit and founded on full knowledge of the trespass. Adams v. Freeman, 9 Johns. 117; Bannon v. Warfield, 42 Md. 42; Bell v. Cunningham, 3 Pet. 69; Owings v. Hull, 9 Pet. 627; Bennecke v. Ins. Co., 105 U. S. 360; Tucker v. Jerris, 75 Me. 184; Smith v. Shaw, 12 Johns. 265, 266; Elder v. Bemis, 2 Metc. 605, 606; Railway v. Moore, 69 Tex. 157.

It cannot be held as matter of law that the mere retention of a servant who, in the course of his employment and while improperly performing an act arising in the line of his duty, inflicts a malicious wrong on another, operates as a ratification of his malicious act and thus to fix his evil motive on his employer so as to render the latter liable in damages. In an action for injuries sustained by the negligence of defendant's servant, the fact that he was not discharged, but was retained in defendant's employ, does not tend to prove a ratification so as to authorize the jury to give punitive damages. Edelmann v. Transfer Co., 3 Mo. App. 503. Even though the servant be retained after criminal conviction. Williams v. P. P. C. Co., 40 La. Ann. 417; 33 Am. & Eng. RR. Cas. 407. Or, although the act complained of was the subject of correspondence between the attorney of the injured party and the defendant, in which the latter's secretary offered to reimburse the injured party certain costs incurred by him. Roe v. Railway Co., 7 Exch. 36. Or even though the defendant's attorney appeared before a magistrate to prosecute the charge upon which the defendant's servant had arrested the plaintiff. Railway Co. v. Broom, 6 Exch. 314.

2. Exemplary damages cannot be allowed in a case of this kind unless the party charged committed the act complained