WHEN THE SUBJECTS OF LARCENY. 9 



Royal Commissioners on the Criminal Code it is said : "One 

 rule of the existing law is founded on the principle that to 

 steal animals used for food or labor is a crime worthy of death, 

 but that to steal animals kept for pleasure or curiosity is only 

 a civil wrong. The principle has long since been practically 

 abandoned. Sheep-stealing is no longer a capital crime, and 

 dog-stealing is a statutory oiTense; but the distinction still 

 gives its form to the law and occasionally produces results 

 of a very undesirable kind. It has been lately held, for in- 

 stance, that, as a dog is not the subject of larceny, it is not a 

 crime to obtain by false pretences two valuable pointers : Reg. 

 V. Robinson, Bell. 34. It seems to us that this rule is quite 

 unreasonable, and that all animals which are the subject of 

 property should also be the subject of larceny." ^^ 



It is necessary, however, to constitute larceny, that he who 

 steals the animal should know it to be reclaimed or confined. ^^ 



The exceptions to the rule that an animal must be fit for 

 food in order to be the subject of larceny were confined to the 

 cases of swans, because they were royal birds,^* hawks, on ac- 

 count of their generous nature and in the interests of noble 

 sportsmen,^* and a stock of bees, which, although not food 

 themselves, produced honey, which was.^^ 



These distinctions have been almost entirely abolished by 

 statute both here and in England, and, as a rule, animals that 

 are the subjects of property are now also the subjects of theft. 

 As was said in a North Carolina case : "All of the distinctions 

 as to animals fera naturce and as to their generous or base 

 natures which we find in the English books, will not hold 

 good in this country. The English system of game laws 

 seems to have been established more for princely diversion 



" 17 Ir. L. T. 10. 



'' I Hale P. C. Sio; 2 Bish. New Crim. L., § 779; Hammond on Larc, 

 pari, ed., p. 36, pi. 70. 



'' Dalt. Just. 156. And see § 9, infra. 



" iHale P. C. Sii; Haywood v. State, 41 Ark. 479, 482. 



^2 East P. C, c. 16, § 41; Haywood v. State, supra. See 45 J. P. 475- 



