ON THE LAW OF LARCENY AND KINDRED OFFENSES SUCH AS ADULTERATION, BLACKMAILING, BURGLARY, CONSPIRACY TO DE- BY STEWART RAPALJE, AUTHOR OF TREATISES ON CONTEMPTS, WITNESSES, CRIMINAL CHICAGO: THE WAIT PUBLISHING COMPANY, LAW BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS. 1892. LIBRARY OF THE LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY. a.37209. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1892, BY STEWART RAPALJE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED DARIUS D. THORP, LANSING, MICH. PREFACE. The purpose for which this book was written, and which has been kept steadily and rigidly in view in all stages of its preparation, is to furnish to those members of the profession who have to do with criminal causes, either as judges, prosecuting officers, or advocates, an accurate and exhaustive presentation, in as concise a form as practicable, of all that has been decided in the reported adjudications of the courts of this country upon the constituent elements, prosecution, defense and punishment of that large class of crimes against property which are committed lucri causa; such as larceny, burglary, embezzlement, false pretenses, receiving stolen goods, robbery, and several other minor offenses more or less of kin thereto. Existing treatises on criminal law, while touching of necessity upon all these specific crimes, cover none of them with thoroughness. They lay down the general rules and principles of the law applicable to them, but do not disclose a tithe of the multitude of applications of those principles (many of them of great refinement and subtlety) which the courts have made; thus changing criminal practice from a comparatively simple science into one, in many respects, as abstruse and complex as is the procedure on the civil side of the courts. The enactment of Penal Codes and Criminal Practice Acts, in very many of the States, has also given rise to numerous conflicts of judicial utterance; so that the reported decisions and the local statutes are the only reliable guides now existing to the lawyer seeking light upon obscure questions of criminal law. In view of these facts, it seemed to the writer that a book which should collect together and group in a logical and convenient manner all the American, and some of the more important English, decisions, upon the criminal offenses most frequently committed, and therefore most frequently occupying the attention and time of judges and lawyers, would be welcomed by them, as to some extent, at least, a lightener of their burdens, and a saver of their time. The gathering of the materials for such a book is a work of great labor, and in such a multitude of cases some are almost certain to be overlooked. It is with diffidence and some misgivings, therefore, that the author offers this as a book of the character above named. Every effort has been put forth to secure accuracy and exhaustiveness of citation, to the end that the judge or practitioner in one State can readily find grouped together all the decisions of his own court of last resort, side by side with all those of all the other courts of last resort, upon any given point within the scope of the subjects treated of. It is too much to hope that this object has been invariably attained, but it is confidently believed to have failed of attainment in but few instances, and in no case because of either carelessness or haste. The table of cases cited has been prepared with unusual care, and compared with the proof sheets before alphabetic arrangement. In the preparation of the index-which, in the estimation of the author, is one of the most important features of a legal text book-the ordinary logical grouping of matter has been discarded, and a strictly alphabetical arrangement substituted, as being better calculated to meet the requirements of the reader. November, 1892. STEWART RAPALJE, |