1828.] Notes fur the Month. 1\ 



best judge of what, to him, any loan or other object is worth : it may be 

 worth his while to borrow money at 15 per cent., if he knows that he can 

 make 30 per cent, by the use of it ; or, on the other hand, it may be bet- 

 ter that he should give even 20 per cent, to provide against an emergency, 

 for cash obtained in the way of loan, than lose 50 per cent, (for the same 

 purpose) by a forced sale of property, to which the law takes no objection. 

 These principles then shew, if they are good for any thing, that it was 

 better for Mr. Grimaldi to pay 1,5001. for the recovery of his watches 

 (though stolen) than toforfeit them altogether ; better for the Warwick 

 bank to have given 2,8001. for the return of their notes, than to sustain a 

 greater loss 10,0001. or 15,0001. added to a ruinous interruption of 

 business, by being deprived of them ? and the undoubted inference, in 

 the abstract, is, that the party, whoever he was, that negociated these 

 exchanges, only performed a service to the persons plundered, which they 

 were very happy to receive, and for which, in fact, they were indebted 

 to him. 



It remains then to be inquired, how far this system militates against 

 the general interests of justice, or is calculated to obstruct the execution 

 of the law : and, upon this point, it will be necessary to draw a clear 

 distinction between the act of paying money for the recovery of stolen 

 property, where the offender is not to be found, and the act of accepting 

 money to abstain from prosecution, where the offender is known, or is in 

 custody. This last arrangement (which is openly and transparently 

 made every day, and no notice at all taken of it,) seems to us to be the 

 real act, and the only act (very much distinguished from the purchases 

 recently complained of), which ought fairly to come under the descrip- 

 tion of a " Compounding Felony." The course taken by Mr. Grimaldi, 

 and the partners in the Warwick bank may be open to danger, as 

 affording some inducement or facility to theft ; but we apprehend very 

 slightly so : because the notes and the watches were neither of them 

 returned from any difficulty as to the disposal of them : the police magi- 

 strates, or their clerks, can in a moment satisfy any unbeliever as to that 

 fact : the inducement to the return was this that, paying the loss 

 which would arise upon the operation of melting part of the property, and 

 disguising the rest, added to the large profits of each of the numerous 

 hands which it must have passed through, before it could come again 

 openly, and for sale, to bona-fide purchasers, into the market, the first 

 or second holder after the theft, got more from the original proprietors, 

 than he could have done from the dealer into whose possession (next) 

 the property must have passed. 



The question then is Can we shut up the market for property so 

 situated to such a degree that no honest man shall have an equitable 

 excuse for dealing in, or assisting it ? We are afraid that this is an object 

 more easily desired than attained. It is impossible, in a country like Eng- 

 land, to watch every commercial transaction very closely ; and the law 

 recognizes no distinction of rights or of persons ; a man of very sus- 

 picious character is entitled to all the same freedom of action, or other 

 immunities, until a crime is actually proved against him, with the most 

 unquestioned, and the most respectable. To watch, closely and effec- 

 tually, even those who are known to be dealers in property fraudulently 

 obtained, is admitted to be impossible. If you could watch such a 

 man's house constantly, and this is practically impossible the evasion 

 is simple he carries his trade elsewhere. If it were possible, even to 

 watch his person which it is visionary even to talk about; you cannot 

 watch his agents, or the employment of his capital. 



