properly notified. The property is treated as the offending thing. It is not confiscated as punishment, but for the purpose of weakening the enemy. This principle underlies the act of Aug. 6, 1861, chap. 60.2 The act of July 17, 1862, chap. 195, proceeds on a different principle, which was to confiscate the property of traitors by way of punishment. This was confined to the natural life of the offending owner. In case of confiscation of a debt, notice should be given to the debtor, in order to obtain jurisdiction. Confiscation proceedings under the laws of the Confederate States had no effect upon the property of a citizen of a loyal State.* SECTION II. Prize. This term is applied to such property as is taken at sea by the right of conquest in time of war, whether from an opposing belligerent, or from a neutral violating the law of nations in respect to war. In this class of cases, it is the general rule that the property should be brought for condemnation into a port belonging to the captor. Still, under peculiar circumstances, condemnation may take place, though the captured property is in a neutral port, and it may be sold there.5 Such a case must be treated as an exception, and cannot be cited as a precedent. It is, perhaps, a correct distinction that undisturbed possession by a captor of a captured ship gives him a title de facto, while the condemnation by a prize court gives the title de jure. The elements usual in prize cases are that the property is taken possession of at sea, and that it belonged to an enemy, or a neutral violating the laws of war. No force is necessary. Cotton abandoned at sea and picked up by the enemy is prize rather than "derelict" property.8 Prize accrues to the government or State to which the captor belongs. Individuals derive their title from the State, and their rights are limited by the grant to them. As a rule, as has been seen, the captor must bring the prize into some port of his own country, and proceed against it in a court having jurisdiction, called "a prize court." This in Eng their claims that they had not given "aid and comfort" to the enemy, but did not help one who owed no allegiance, such as a foreigner not being within the United States, but having property captured there. Congress must intervene in favor of such a person. He can otherwise receive no assistance from the amnesty, nor from the courts. 1 Chapman v. Phoenix Nat. Bank, 85 N. Y. 437. For a case where the owner recovered the proceeds as not falling within the statute, see United States v. Quigley, 103 U. S. 595. 2 Phoenix Bank v. Risley, 111 U. S. 125, affirming Risley v. Phenix Bank, 83 N. Y. 318. 8 Id. • Stevens v. Griffith, 111 U. S. 48. The Polka, 1 Spinks Ecc. & Adm. R. 447 (1854). 6 The Polka, supra, also The Henrick & Maria, 4 Rob. 43, and 6 Id. 138, n. 7 See remarks of court in The Gauntlet, L. R. 4 P. C. 184, 192. 8 Seventy-eight Bales of Cotton, 1 Lowell, 11; The Wando, Id. 18. land is a court of admiralty. Here it is a United States court; at present, a District Court having by act of Congress the requisite jurisdiction. The proceeding is in rem, or against the property itself. The decision of a prize court having jurisdiction so far fixes the status of the property that the title passes to the captor. This is recognized in courts of other countries, including those of the country where the captured property originally belonged. Redress, if the decision be erroneous, can only be obtained by diplomacy; and if that fail, by war. The ground of this rule is that the legal proceeding is against the thing captured. Its object is to establish the status or ownership of the thing, and the judgment of the court fixes or establishes such ownership. It is not intended to develop the details of prize law, but only to point out the relation of the topic to the title to personal property. The origin of the jurisdiction was first clearly stated in Lindo v. Rodney, a great case decided by Lord MANSFIELD, where it was shown that a prize court entertained a special jurisdiction in time of war only, conferred upon it by statute, and was a different tribunal from the ordinary or "instance" court of admiralty, sitting to transact maritime legal business in time of peace. In the United States the district court has authority over both classes of cases, though the prize jurisdiction is, for the most part, dormant in time of peace. For further information, the admiralty decisions in England and in the courts of the United States, particularly those of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as the treatises of standard text-writers, should be consulted." This topic will be considered under two sections: I. Finding on Land. II. Finding at Sea. SECTION I. Finding on Land. - Finding takes place when one who is not the owner of a chattel takes possession of it on the 1 Reported in a note to Le Caux v. Eden, 2 Doug. pp. 612, 613. 2 Reference may be made to the standing interrogatories in 2 Wheat. Appendix, p. 81, and 1 Ch. Rob. 381, and to the U. S. Revised Statutes, §§ 4613-4652, to the rules in admiralty of the Supreme Court, and to notes in the Appendix to 1 and 2 Wheat. Important block ade cases are The Franciska, 2 Spinks Ecc. & Adm. R. 113. The Prize Cases, 2 Black, 635, and Blatchford's Prize Cases. Many authorities are collected by Mr. David Roberts, in his Treatise on Admiralty and Prize (Part II.). There is in this book a useful collection of the names of the judges of the United States Supreme Court, and the date of their appointment, together with a list of admiralty reports, both in England and in this country, down to the year 1868, pp. 641-644. The treatises on International Law should also be consulted. ground that it has been lost 1 by its owner, not knowing at the time who is owner, nor having reasonable grounds to believe that he can be found. The line between finding and stealing is narrow, and the test in a close or doubtful case is, whether the socalled finder knows at the time who the owner is, or has reasonable grounds to believe who he is.2 If so, and he appropriates the chattel to his own use, he is a thief. If not, he does not become a thief by a subsequent wrongful appropriation to his own use. The capital fact in larceny or stealing is the act of felonious taking. On the other hand, if the owner is not known at the time of taking, or there are no reasonable grounds for believing that he can be ascertained, there is no larceny, though the finder conceals the goods, or converts them to his own use, after ascertaining who the real owner is.3 (a) This rule has been held not to be applicable to cattle at large in the highway. The principle has been stated in the following forms in the cases: If one claiming to be a finder takes goods into his possession with a felonious intent to deprive the owner of them, and then has reasonable means of ascertaining who is the owner, it is a case of larceny.5 The place of finding may be material as tending to show whether the goods were really lost or mislaid, or left by the owner under circumstances which would lead him to return for them. One who, when he finds a pocket-book containing money, appropriates it with intent to take entire dominion over it, and at the same time reasonably believes that the owner can be found, is guilty of larceny. Where one, at the time of finding, has reasonable ground to believe, from the nature of the property or the circumstances under which it is found, that if he does not conceal, but deals honestly with it, the owner will be ascertained, he will be guilty of larceny if, at the time of taking the property into his possession, he intends to steal it. The finder of lost goods which have no marks by which the owner can be identified, and who does not know to whom they belong, is not guilty of larceny, even if he does not exercise diligence to discover who the owner of the goods may be. The rule that the finder of property so marked Porter v. State, Mart. & Yerg. (Tenn.) 1 There must be a loss. Reg. v. West, 6 Cox C. C. 415. 2 People v. Swan, 1 Park. C. C. 9; State v. Weston, 9 Conn. 527; State v. McCann, 19 Mo. 249. 8 Lane v. The People, 10 Ill. 305; State v. Taylor, 25 Ia. 273; State v. Conway, 18 Mo. 321; People v. Anderson, 14 Johns. 294; People v. Cogdell, 1 Hill, 94; 226. 4 People v. Kaatz, 3 Park. C. C. 129. 7 Reed v. State, 8 Tex. App. 40. (a) Allen v. State, 91 Ala. 19. that the owner can be ascertained is guilty of larceny if he converts it to his own use, has been applied in the case of a bar of bullion lost from a stage-coach.1 The rule as laid down in the English courts is, that if a man finds goods that have been actually lost, or are reasonably supposed by him to have been lost, and appropriates them with intent to take the entire dominion over them, really believing when he takes them that the owner cannot be found, there is no larceny. If he reasonably believes that the owner can be found. under the same circumstances, it is a case of larceny. The "reasonable belief" referred to in the last sentence means such belief as might be derived from the finder's previous acquaintance with the ownership of the particular chattel, the place where it is found, or the nature of the marks upon it. Reasonable belief at the time of finding that the owner can be found, is insisted upon by many decisions. Accordingly, if the original intention be innocent, no subsequent change of intent will constitute larceny. It is not a case of finding, in the legal sense, where a passenger accidentally leaves goods in a railway-car, and a servant of the road appropriates them. Nor where a purse was accidentally left on the prisoner's stall and appropriated by her. In this last case there was plainly no loss of goods. The court said: "The distinction is quite clear between property mislaidthat is, put down and left in a place to which the owner would be likely to return for it- and property lost." (a) Dropping the distinction between finding and stealing, the next point to be considered is the act that constitutes "finding." There may be competing claims between the owner of property, such as land or a building upon which the goods are claimed to be found, and one who may casually pick them up or lay hold of them. The correct view in such a case is, that if the goods were lost as distinguished from being deposited, the casual finder, having first obtained possession, would have the better right. A leading illustration is found in the case where a commercial traveller picked up a parcel (which proved to contain bank notes) on the floor of a shop at which he had called on business. It was decided that 1 State v. Clifford, 14 Nev. 72. 2 Reg. v. Thurborn (or Reg. v. Wood), 3 Cox C. C. 453; s. c. 1 Den. C. C. 387. In this case there is an elaborate opinion by PARKE, B. Reg. v. Glyde, L. R. 1 C. C. R. 139. 3 Reg. r. Thurborn, 1 Den. C. C. 387, 396. 4 Reg. v. Deaves, 11 Cox C. C. 227; Reg. v. Knight, 12 Id. 102; Reg. v. Matthews, 28 L. T. N. s. 645. Reg. v. Preston, 5 Cox C. C. 390. Reg v. Pierce, 6 Cox C. C. 117. 7 Reg. v. West, 6 Cox C. C. 415. (a) Livermore v. White, 74 Me. 452. he was the finder, rather than the owner of the shop. This principle has been extended to the case of a domestic servant picking up a roll of bank bills in the public parlor of a hotel, there being no presumption in such a case that the money belongs to a guest of the hotel. So, as between one who had bought a safe and another who, having permission to use it, found a roll of bank bills between the outer casing and the lining, it was held that the latter was the true finder. If, however, the goods had been in the lawful custody of the owner of the hotel or other property referred to in the various cases cited above, the latter would have been the real finder.1 The effect of finding is, that the finder is owner as to all persons except the true owner.5 As if one should find a jewel, and he should be deprived of it by another against his consent, he could recover its full value. He would hold the proceeds in trust for the true owner, if discovered, in the same way as he held the jewel itself. As between him and the rightful owner, the title is in the latter. He has no lien upon the chattel for the act of finding, nor is he entitled to any reward. If, however, a reward be offered, a lien is created to the extent of the reward. The offer of a reward is in the nature of a proposal to contract, which is deemed to be accepted by the finder on complying with the proposal. The remedy against the finder by the owner for a wrongful refusal to return the goods is an action for the specific thing (replevin), or at his election an action for conversion to obtain its value. Reference should be made here to the special cases of treasure trove, estray, and wreck. Treasure trove (treasure found), says Bracton 8 (following the Roman law), "is an ancient deposit of money or some other metal, respecting which memory exists not, so that it has no owner, and so, of natural right, it becomes the property of him who has found it, so that it shall not belong to another. Otherwise, if any one shall have hidden anything under the ground for the sake of gain or of fear or of custody." Accordingly, a "treasure" must be found by accident. If A. found a "treasure" on B.'s land otherwise than by accident, it belonged in the old law 1 Bridges v. Hawkesworth, 21 L. J. N. s. purchased by her employer, found genuine (Q. B.) 75; s. c. 15 Jur. 1079. bank bills in an envelope. 2 Hamaker v. Blanchard, 90 Pa. St. 377. See also Matthews v. Harsell, 1 E. D. Smith, 393. * Durfee v. Jones, 11 R. I. 588; Bowen Sullivan, 62 Ind. 281. In this case, a servant, while sorting a bale of old papers 4 McAvoy v. Medina, 11 Allen, 548. 5 Armory v. Delamirie, 1 Strange, 505. 6 Wood v. Pierson, 45 Mich. 313. 7 Wentworth v. Day, 3 Met. 352; Cum. mings v. Gaun, 52 Pa. St. 454. 8 2 Bracton (Twiss' ed.), 271. |