do not constitute larceny; and such acts are criminal only in consequence of statutes which declare the obtaining of goods by false tokens and pretenses to be criminal. A few cases will make this point clear. The defendant was a fakir on the street, took from his pocket a purse and three shillings, appeared to drop the shillings into the purse, and offered to sell the purse and contents for one shilling. The prosecutor offered to give a shilling for the purse and three shillings, gave the shilling, received the purse and contents, later found it contained three half-pence, and had the defendant arrested for larceny. The court said: "I cannot myself imagine a clearer illustration of the difference between the offense of false pretenses and that of larceny than is afforded by this case. It is perfectly clear that the prosecutor intended to part with the property in the coins, and that being so, the case is clearly not that of larceny" (12). In another case the defendant called at the prosecutor's house, said that the prosecutor had been arrested for assaulting a man with a chair and would be taken to jail immediately if he could not have $12, for which the defendant said he had been sent. The wife gave the defendant $2 and some jewels to pawn and take the money to her husband. On conviction of larceny for taking this property the defendant appealed, and the judgment was affirmed. The court said: "The accused obtained the custody of the chattels and money of the prosecutor from his wife by a fraudulent device and trick, and for a special purpose connected with the falsely represented necessi (12) Queen v. Solomons, 17 Cox Crim. Cases 93. ties of the owner, with the felonious intent to appropriate the same to his own use. He did not pawn or pledge the goods as he had promised to do, but did appropriate the same to his own use, in pursuance of the felonious intent with which he received them. This constitutes the crime of larceny. The owner did not part with the property in the chattels or transfer the legal possession. The accused had merely the custody; the possession and ownership remained with the original proprietor" (13). § 129. What is obtaining with consent. It has been held in some cases that consent obtained by fraud or mistake is no consent; for by the mistake or fraud the consent is avoided. But it is believed that this is not so; for such a doctrine would make a man guilty of rape who obtained the consent of a common prostitute by giving her counterfeit money; and many other manifest absurdities would result from a general recognition of such a doctrine. And yet it is clear that that consent is no defense to a charge of larceny unless it was genuine, and the thing done was the thing consented to. One who stole a box of matches from the counter of a grocery store was held guilty of larceny, though the matches were put there by the owner to be used by his customers to light their pipes. It was said that he put them there to be taken, consented that they be taken, and intended that anyone who wished them should take them; and therefore the defendant committed no larceny when he took them. But it is clear that the owner did not consent nor intend that anyone should take the whole box, and so the defendant took them with (13) Smith v. People, 53 New York 111. out the consent and against the will of the owner, for which he was properly convicted of larceny (14). In another case a cotton buyer was properly convicted of stealing cotton on proof that, following the custom of cotton buyers, he put a barbed spear into the bales to test the quality of the center of the bale by pulling out a part of it, but used an instrument intended to bring out much more than was necessary to ascertain the quality, and with the intention to appropriate the whole amount taken to his own use. The farmer consented that he should sample the cotton, but that was not a consent that he should take more than was necessary and customary to learn the nature of the inside of the bale (15). In the case mentioned some time ago, a village marshal, who, suspecting thieves, disguised himself, played drunk, fell down in an alley, and watched for the thieves to come and take money he had put in his pockets for them, had not consented that they should take the money, and although he lay very still until they had taken the money and was watching them all the time, it was properly held that they were taking without his consent and were guilty of larceny (16). § 130. What carrying away is sufficient. To make the crime of larceny there must be a taking and carrying away of the goods by the thief. But the reader must not assume that it is necessary that the thief get to any great distance with the goods. It is enough to make the crime (14) Mitchum v. State, 45 Ala. 29. complete that he had reduced the goods to his entire and exclusive dominion and had started away with them. Any moving of the entire parcel is a sufficient carrying away. A thief who removes a bag from the front to the tail of a coach and drops it because he is caught, or who just lifts it up and then drops it to avoid detection, is guilty of the complete crime of larceny. A man who went to a store and asked for something in the window, and, while the proprietor was going for it, opened the till and grasped the bills in it, was held guilty of larceny, though he dropped them in a crumpled condition on being discovered (17). A man who shot a pig running in the woods and fraudulently procured the consent of the owner afterwards to remove it to make soap of it, by saying that he found it dead, was held guilty of larceny in taking it (18). If he had not removed it after he shot it, his crime, whatever else it might have been, would not have been larceny. The carrying away may be by an innocent agent, as in the case of the thief who transferred the check from his trunk to another and the other check to his at a railway station, causing the railway company to deliver the other man's trunk to him and send it to wrong destination. He was clearly guilty of larceny (19). § 131. What goods are another's. It is clear that a man cannot be guilty of larceny in taking his own property. And yet if I lend you my umbrella and later take it secretly to charge you with its value, you clearly have a sufficient interest in it to sustain a charge of larceny, and my intent is feloniously to deprive you of that property, which makes me guilty of larceny. Even a thief has a sufficient property in the goods stolen to make it larceny in anyone to steal from him the same goods. But as husband and wife are one, it has been held that she could not be convicted of larceny in taking his goods; wherefore an adulterer who took goods given him by the wife of another, with whom he was eloping in adultery, was held not guilty of receiving stolen goods (20). who had deposited his bicycle as security for his board was held guilty of larceny in fraudulently taking it (21). One § 132. What is a sufficient taking. There is no complete larceny until the thief has succeeded in reducing the goods to his exclusive and complete dominion. A pickpocket was held not guilty, because the string of the purse he stole stuck to the keys still in the prosecutor's pocket (22). One who knocked money out of the hand of another to steal it was held not guilty because he could not find it on the ground where it fell and never had complete dominion over it (23). One who tried to steal a hog by tolling it along with corn dropped on the ground to lead it away, was held not guilty of larceny though he had led it along for several rods, for when he tried to seize it the hog ran away (24). One who sought to steal an overcoat standing in front of a clothing store on a wire dummy, |