THEFT

In Jurisprudence, the general name for the most ordinary cla of offences against property; for which English law uses the peculiar designation of larceny. The difficulty of distinguishing between theft, those other species of fraudulent appropriation which are regarded by the laws of most countries as criminal offences, and, finally, that cla which is only the subject of civil action, has given rise to a variety of definitions. By the French Code, art. 379, " Whoever has fraudulently abstracted a thing which does not belong to him is guilty of theft." By that of Bavaria, art. 209, "Whoever knowingly of his own accord takes po e ion of moveables not his, without consent of the jierson entitled thereto, but without violence to any one, with intent unlawfully to hold the same as his property, is a thief." The principnl characteristics of English law on the subject are, that it requires an actual taking, and an actual carrying away for some distance, however snvll, to constitute the offence. The Commi ioners of Criminal Law, in their Third Report (1839), recommend the following definition:" Whosoever shall, without such consent as is hereinafter specified, take and remove anything, being the property of any other person, and, unle when it shall be other wise provided, of some value with intent to despoil th« owner, and fraudulently appropriate the same, shall b« [s. 1250]