A Curious Point.

Evening Star, Issue 6913, 28 May 1885, Page 3

A Curious Point.

If a sovereign is given to a cabman by his fare, both parties believing it to be a shilling, and an hour later the cabman discovers the*mistake and keeps the sovereign, has he stolen it ? The argument of this question before the Court for Crown Cases Reserved (says the ‘St, James’s Gazette’) afforded excellent entertainment to a professional audience. The difficulty is, that to “take and carry away aiihno furamli ” is an essential part of the common-law definition of larceny, and that in this case the cabman did not form a felonious intention about the sovereign when he took it and carriedit away, because he then believed it to be a shilling. On behalf of the Crown it was urged that either he took it when he knew it was a sovereign or the felonious intention which he subsequently formed relates back to the time w’hen he took it. Before the argument had gone far it was apparent that the five judges who were hearing the case were not agreed, and while Lora Coleridge had no doubt that the sovereign was stolen, Mr Justice Stephen was equally positive that it was not. Mr Justice Cave further complicated matters by throwing out a suggestion that the cabman might perhaps have committed the statutory offence called larceny by a bailee. In the result the Lord Chief Justice announced that the Bench was so seriously divided in opinion that there must be a further argument before the full Court —that is, the whole Queen’s Bench Division ; so that the frequenters of the law courts will again bo gratified by the most impressive legal spectacle loft to us in these prosaic days, that of twelve or fourteen fudges all sitting together to decide a question of criminal law.