One may be guilty

§ 15. Larceny from house or building. of larceny from a house, although his original entry was not felonious or with an intent to steal;' but the entry must have been against the consent of the owner, unless the crime was meditated at the time of an entry with consent.' In Massachusetts, breaking and entering a dwelling-house in the day time, with intent to steal, and stealing in a dwelling-house, whether by breaking and entering or otherwise, are distinct offenses subject to separate punishment. But any one act of breaking, entering, and stealing necessarily constitutes both of these offenses."

Stealing the money of a lodger which is in his trunk, and the key of the trunk in a pocket of his clothes, while he is in

for a crime, and had sent him to her for some money. The wife gave him a watch and chain to pawn, the money and ticket to be given to M. Defendant made the representations and received the goods with the intent to appropriate the same to his own use. Held, that he was guilty of larceny. Smith v. People, 53 N. Y. 111; 13 Am. Rep. 474.

A. having left his watch at a watchmaker's to be repaired, B. went there pretending to be A., asked for the watch, paid for the repairing, and took the watch with a felonious intent. Held, that this constituted larceny at common law.-Com. v. Collins, 12 Allen 181.

The prisoner sent an order to K. & Co., jewelers, for six pairs of gold bracelets, which they sent to him. The prisoner was also a jeweler, and the order was designed and understood to be an application for the bracelets for the purpose of showing them to a customer and enabling him to inspect them, and select which, if either, he would take, and the money for that, together with the remainder of the bracelets, was to be returned to K. & Co. But the prisoner did not return to K. & Co. either the bracelets or the money for either of them. Held, that as the title to the bracelets until sold remained in K. & Co., the prisoner was guilty of larceny.-Weyman

v. People, 6 Thomp. & C. 696.

It appeared that the prisoner and S., who were confederates, met the prosecutor; S. dropped a piece of paper; prisoner picked it up while S. had stepped aside, and took from it a five cent coin; S., on returning, received the paper from prisoner, saying that "he would not take ten dollars" for it, and proceeded to bet that there was a five cent coin in it; prosecutor bet his watch, and the stakes were placed in prisoner's hands, whereupon S. tore open the paper, exhibited a five-cent coin, which had been concealed therein, snatched the watch, and walked off. Held, larceny.--Defrese v. State, 3 Heisk. 53; 8 Am. Rep. 1.

C., being seated in a railway train with G., a stranger, S., a stranger to 1 Perry v. State, 10 Ga. 511.

2 State v. Chambers, 6 Ala. 855.

3 Com. v. Hope, 22 Pick 1.

bed, undressed and asleep, is larceny from a dwelling-house;' otherwise, however, where the money is in the immediate care and protection of its owner. Where one enters a bank with money in a satchel, which he deposits temporarily upon a counter within two feet of him, whereupon another calling his attention away, a third abstracts the money from the satchel —this is larceny from the house.' The fact that a police officer is present when the larceny is committed will not change the character of the offense, he being stationed there for the purpose of detecting the thief. But to steal clothes from the railing of a piazza, is not larceny from a house, nor is the running away with goods handed to the thief for inspection. by the shop-keeper, while the latter's back is turned, larceny

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C., entered, wearing a badge, and falsely pretending to be an express agent, and told G. that if he wished his baggage taken to Cincinnati he must pay charges. G. offered him a check, which he said he could not cash, but asked C. to cash it, and hold it till they reached Cincinnati, promising to cash it there. C. gave him the money, and G. and S. rushed from the train, taking both money and check. G. had no baggage on board, and the proceeding was concocted with intent to steal C.'s money. Held, larceny by both.-Grunson v. State, 89 Ind. 533; 46 Am. Rep. 178. S. P., People v. Rae, 66 Cal. 425; 56 Am. Rep. 102.

The prisoner agreed to buy goods of a merchant for cash, the goods to be delivered C. O. D. to an expressman whom he would send. Shortly after, an employe of the prisoner called at the merchant's shop, falsely representing himself to be an expressman, and stating that he had come for the goods. They were delivered to him, with instructions to collect on delivery. He delivered them to the prisoner, receiving from him a worthless check, which he left at the merchant's shop in his absence. The prisoner refusing to give up the goods or pay for them,-Held, that a conviction of larceny was justifiable.-Shipply v. People, 86 N. Y. 375; 40 Am. Rep. 551. On the trial of A. and B., for grand larceny, it was proved that A. ordered some goods at a store, and directed them to be sent to a certain place where they would be paid for; that the goods were sent by a clerk, and on his going into the house B. took the goods, saying, "These are the goods my sister ordered;" that asking the clerk to take a seat, she went into the next room, saying she would look at the goods; that after some time, the clerk discovered that she had left the house, and that some of the goods were afterwards found in another house, where A lived. Held, that both A. and B. were guilty of larceny.-St. Valerie v. People, 64 Barb. 426.

1 Com. v. Smith, 111 Mass. 429.

* State v. Patterson, 98 Mo. 283.

* Simmons v. State, 73 Ga 609; 54 Am. Rep. 885.

* Commonwealth v. Nott, 135 Mass. 269.

Henry v. State, 39 Ala. 679.

from a building, under the Massachusetts statute.' In Georgia, the building stolen from must be a "dwelling house, store, shop, warehouse, or other house within the curtilage. It has been held that a furnished room, used by a single man as a lodging room, in the basement of a building, the other part of which is occupied in the day-time by him and others as offices, is a dwelling-house, within the meaning of a statute punishing larceny from a "dwelling-house;" but that an underground cellar, used for storing ice and beer, having no internal door of communication with the living rooms in the upper stories of the same building, and not under the control and dominion of any occupant of the building, is not.* So, also, a covered structure, used for storing cotton bales, one side and end of which are planked up, and the others left open so that wagons can drive under to load and unload, which, together with two acres of land connected with it, is enclosed by a plank fence nine feet high, the gates of which are kept locked, constitutes a "warehouse," within the meaning of a similar statute; otherwise, of a small, slight building, twenty-one feet by fifteen, in a garden, used for the storage of garden tools, seeds, and manures, and of a baggage-room on a platform, covered by the same roof, but not inclosed, which is used as a common passage-way by all going about the depot. In Texas a domestic servant is relieved from the increased penalty attached to larceny from a house in which he is employed, but a person hired for an hour to carry wood from the street to the back yard, and passing through the house in such labor, is not such a servant, nor is one hired for one day "to butcher and cut up beef."""

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§ 16. Larceny from the person.-To constitute this offense

1 Commonwealth v. Lester, 129 Mass. 101.

? Inman v. State, 54 Ga. 219; Middleton v. State, 53 Ga. 248.

People v. Horrigan, 68 Mich. 491.

+ State v. Clark, 89 Mo. 423.

'Hagan v. State, 52 Ala, 373; Bennett v. State, Id. 370.

State v. Wilson, 47 N. H. 101.

Lynch v. State, 89 Ala. 18.

8 Williams v. State, 41 Tex. 649.

• Richardson v. State, 43 Tex. 456. See also Coleman v. State, 44 Tex. 109; Ullman v. State, 1 Tex. App. 220.

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the theft must be from the person, and not merely in the presence of the dispossessed party, and must be committed without his knowledge, or so suddenly as to preclude resistance before asportation.' This offense is not committed where money is taken from the vest pocket of one partially intoxicated, and consenting, provided the taker should pay it back. But plundering a sleeping person has been held to be larceny from the person. Snatching money from another's hand with no more force than is necessary to withdraw it, is sufficient to constitute the offense; and the lifting of a pocket-book partly from the pocket of another person, with intent to steal it, is "taking and carrying away," although it is not removed from the pocket. An attempt to steal from the person is complete when an act is done with intent to commit the crime which is adapted to the perpetration of it, whether the purpose fails by reason of interruption, or because there was nothing in the pocket, or for other extrinsic cause. But the thief must, for an instant at least, have had perfect control of the property, even if he did not succeed in removing it from the victim's pocket. If he had the pocket-book once within his grasp, the instantaneous caption and asportation is sufficient. If more than one person is concerned in the original guilty purpose of committing larceny from the person, all who are present, aiding and abetting, are principals. But one who afterwards receives the stolen property without being in anywise concerned in the original purpose, is guilty of the larceny alone."

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§ 17. Larceny from the mail.-Under U. S. Rev. Stat. $3891, punishing one who shall "unlawfully detain, delay, or open any letter, packet, bag or mail of letters," etc., a

1 Woodward v. State, 9 Tex. App. 413; Green v. State, 28 Tex. App. 493. Moye v. State, 65 Ga. 754.

* Hall v. People, 39 Mich. 717.

4 Johnson v. .Com., 24 Gratt. 555.

› State v. Chambers, 22 W. Va. 779; 46 Am. Rep. 550; Harrison v. People,

50 N. Y. 518; 10 Am. Rep. 517.

State v. Wilson, 30 Conn. 500; People v. Moran, 123 N. Y. 254.

* Com. v. Luckis, 96 Mass. 431; 96 Am. Dec. 769.

mailable packet of merchandise is included.' Under § 3892, the offense is complete although the letter taken contains nothing of value,' and merely putting a letter into one's pocket may be a stealing "from a post-office," without a removal of it from the building; in such case a desk, trunk, or box carried about a house, or from one building to another, is a "post-office." In Rev. Stat. § 5467, the words "steal" and "take" are not synonymous; a postmaster taking money out of a registered letter simply with intent to borrow and return it, is guilty of "taking" it. Sections 5469 and 5470 punish any taking, or abstracting of the articles, or receiving them, when so taken, with the object described in the statute to " open," secrete, ""destroy," "embezzle," or "steal." But there must be an intent to steal at the time the mail matter is taken." Section 5469 covers the stealing by a postal clerk from a postal car,' and the term "mail," as there used, may mean either the whole body of matter transported by the postal agents, or any letter or package forming a component part of it; including a decoy letter expressly prepared to entrap the thief." One who induces a post-office employee to intercept and hand over a letter which is in course of transmission by the mails is either guilty of larceny as a principal felon or is accessory before the fact to the larceny committed by the post-office employe, and in either view can be convicted on an indictment charging him with larceny of the letter." The postmark is presumptive evidence of the mailing of a letter, and such a rule is not displaced by showing that envelopes not mailed have been stamped with a given postmark;" but the most sat1 United States v. Blackman, 17 Fed. Rep. 837; Beery v. United States, 2 Col. T. 186.

2 United States v. Davis, 33 Fed. Rep. 865.

3 United States v. Marselis, 2 Blatchf. 108.

4 United States v. Thompson, 29 Fed. Rep. 706.

United States v. Jolly 37 Fed. Rep. 108.

• United States v. Inabnet, 41 Fed. Rep. 130.

United States v. Falkenhainer, 21 Fed. Rep. 624.

8 United States v. Inabnet, 41 Fed. Rep. 130.

• United States v. Cottingham, 2 Blatchf. 470; United States v. Dorsey,

40 Fed. Rep. 752.

10 Reg v. James, 24 Q. B. D. 439.

11 United States v. Noelke, 17 Blatchf. 554.