Petty larceny

“ A most unamiable reason it certainly is, which places a man in one constant attitude of self-protection against petty larceny. And yet, humiliating as that may be to human nature, the furtive propensities or instincts of petty larceny are diffused most extensively through all ranks—directed, too, upon a sort of property far more tangible and more ignoble, as respects the possible motives of the purloiner, than any property in subjects purely intellectual. ”

“ XIX. As for stealing—not that form of it which comes within the range of petty larceny, but the wider and more awful range of felony—it may be safely said, that nearly all public men have steeped themselves to the neck in this crime, and the common people take to it as easily and naturally as birds in a garden take to sweet berries. ”

“ Well, I never knew before that a lad who stole apples was called a philosopher—we calls it petty larceny in the indictments: and as for your rights of man, I cannot see how they can be defended by doing what's wrong. ”

“ "It is Never Too Late to Mend."
Since it can never be too late To change your life, or else renew it, Let the unpleasant process wait Until you are compelled to do it. The State provides (and gratis too) Establishments for such as you.
Remember this, and pluck up heart, That, be you publican or parson, Your ev'ry art must have a start, From petty larceny to arson; And even in the burglar's trade, The cracksman is not born, but made.
So, if in your career of crime, You fail to carry out some "coup", Then try again a second time, And yet again, until you do; ”

“ Imprisonment is not the only penalty inflicted; cases of petty larceny are generally dealt with by flogging. The culprit is handcuffed and with the identical article which he stole, or one similar, suspended from his neck, is marched through the streets of the neighbourhood in which the theft was committed. He is preceded by a man beating a gong, and at each beat of the gong an officer who walks behind gives him a severe blow with a double rattan across the shoulders, exclaiming, “This is the punishment due to a thief.” ”

“ Thus thieves are loth to confess that they are [Pg 36] guilty of only petty larceny, and are sometimes prompted by vanity to commit more serious robberies. The same false shame is common to fallen women, among whom contempt is incurred, not by excess of depravity but by the failure to command high prices. Grellinier, a petty thief, boasted in court of imaginary offences, with the desire of appearing in the light of a great criminal. ”

“ Fines should always be inflicted for slight infractions of the law and in all cases of petty larceny, frauds, and forgeries committed by minors. The fines should be proportioned to the means of the individual and the gravity of the offence, and replaced by compulsory labour in the case of those who refuse to pay. ”

“ Three-fourths of all assize indictments and many quarter-sessions indictments were for various types of theft, including petty larceny, grand larceny, housebreaking, burglary, sheep stealing, and robbery. These offenses were mostly opportunistic rather than planned, except for London's underworld of professional thieves and the cutpurses of country markets and highway robbers on lonely roads. There were substantial peaks in theft in periods of harvest failure and industrial depression, especially by vagrants. But most of the poor never stole. ”

“ Only those imprisoned for the smaller offenses of a single incidence of petty larceny, receipt of felons, or accessory to a felony, or some other trespass not punishable by life or limb shall be let out by sufficient surety. Prisoners who were outlawed or escaped from prison or are notorious thieves or were imprisoned for felonious house burning, passing false money, counterfeiting the King's seal, treason touching the king himself, or other major offenses or have been excommunicated by the church may not be released. ”

“ If the unhappy person against whom your laudable vengeance is directed be a thief, think that a thief may have a good nose, good eyes, good ears. It is indispensable to his profession that he be possessed of sagacity, foresight, vigilance; it is more than probable, then, that he is endued with the bodily types or instruments of these qualities to some tolerable degree of perfectness.
4. If petty larceny be his offence, I exhort you, do not confound meanness of crime with diminutiveness of stature. ”

“ As culprits, however, harden in heart with each repetition of crime, until from petty larceny, the initiating offence, they ascend unscrupulously to the perpetration of felony without benefit of clergy ”

“ Any such petty larceny exploits as the scholars at some other “seats of learning” are popularly said to be not unfrequently guilty of, such as robberies of orchards or poultry-yards or the like, would have inevitably entailed a public tunding. Any attempt{113} whatsoever to appropriate unduly either by fraud or violence anything sent to another boy from home—any portion of a “cargo,” as such despatches were called—and à fortiori any money or money’s value, would have necessitated a public tunding. The infliction was rare. ”

“ Martin-des-Champs the cases are recorded with too much conciseness to give details as to the process, only the charge and the sentence being stated. It frequently happens, however, that a man convicted of some petty larceny is stated to have confessed more serious previous crimes, which necessarily implies their confession being extorted. ”

“ Whosoever shall be guilty of Horse-stealing, [61] shall be condemned 158 to hard labor three years in the public works, and shall make reparation to the person injured.
Grand Larceny [62] shall be where the goods stolen are of the value of five dollars; and whosoever shall be guilty thereof, shall be forthwith put in the pillory for one half hour, shall be condemned to hard labor [63] two years in the public works, and shall make reparation to the person injured. 159
Petty Larceny shall be, where the goods stolen are of less value than five dollars ”

“ Dealing with stolen goods by persons other than the thief may affect the rights of such persons either criminally or civilly. Two varieties of crime arise from such dealings. (1) Receiving stolen goods knowing them to have been stolen, a misdemeanour at common law, is by the Larceny Act a felony punishable by penal servitude for fourteen years where the theft amounts to felony, a misdemeanour punishable by penal servitude for seven years where the theft is a misdemeanour, as in obtaining goods by false pretences. ”

“ When these men find that they and their customers, and not the clerks and messengers, are paying the loss accounts of the latter, they are very much distressed, and tell the District Attorney, with regret, that only by sending such wicked and treacherous persons to State's prison can similar dishonesty be prevented.
Not long ago the writer became acquainted with a young man who, as loan clerk in a trust company, had misappropriated a large amount of securities and had pleaded guilty to the crime of grand larceny in the first degree. ”

“ A person taking money or reward for helping any other person to stolen goods or chattels is guilty of felony unless he brings the thief to trial.
As of 1717, any person convicted of grand or petit larceny or any felonious stealing or taking of money, goods, or chattels, either from the person or from the house of any person who is entitled to benefit of clergy and who is liable only to whipping or burning in the hand may instead be transported to the American colonies to the use of any person who will pay for his transportation for seven years. ”

“ The contention on the part of the plaintiff in error is that, in order to sustain an indictment under this statute (1) there must be a felonious and forcible taking of personal property; and (2) the property must be the subject of larceny, which postage stamps belonging to the government are not.
1. There are two distinct offenses mentioned in the statute.
One is the offense of robbery, the legal and technical meaning of which is well known. It is a forcible taking, or a taking by putting the individual robbed in fear. ”

“ Bigamy, with its attendant disgrace and illegitimacy, is a misdemeanor, while embezzlement by a servant is a felony. For a clerk or agent to embezzle—by the code called larceny—is a felony; for a banker, trustee or guardian to embezzle, is only a misdemeanor. * * *
Administering a narcotic with intent to commit larceny, is felony; assault and battery endangering the life of an infant, is a misdemeanor. Blackmailing is only a misdemeanor, while receiving stolen goods is a felony. ”

“ An allegation simply of breaking, entering, and stealing states the burglary in a form which makes it single, and a conviction therefor will bar an indictment for the larceny or the burglary alone. But equally well a first count may set out a breaking and entering with intent to steal, and a second may allege the larceny as a separate thing, and thereon the defendant may be convicted and sentenced for both.' Vol. ”

“ Thus, if the legislature defines some core crime and then provides for increasing the punishment of that crime upon a finding of some aggravating fact—of whatever sort, including the fact of a prior conviction—the core crime and the aggravating fact together constitute an aggravated crime, just as much as grand larceny is an aggravated form of petit larceny. The aggravating fact is an element of the aggravated crime. ”

“ For, heartless as man is at times, he detests the idea of prosecuting a woman for the commission of a petty theft, when the end, for her, means the penitentiary. In very many, perhaps the majority of, cases he will be satisfied if his goods are recovered, and permit the thief to go unpunished. This is very frequently the case with that class of shop-lifters called, by courtesy, the "kleptomaniac,"—the wealthy lady who steals what she could easily have purchased. ”

“ Has A ever stolen anything? it is enough to record one judgment against him, or to bring one witness on the matter in order to establish that A committed theft at least once in his life. If, however, it is to be proved that the man has never committed a theft, his whole life must be reviewed point by point, and it must be shown that at no instant of it did he commit larceny. ”

“ No one can really say what is meant by saying a crime involving moral turpitude. Under some circumstances, larceny is considered a crime involving moral turpitude-that is, stealing. We have laws in some States under which picking out a chunk of coal on a railroad track is considered larceny or stealing. In some States it is considered a felony. Some States hold that every felony is a crime involving moral turpitude. ”

“ What has concerned codifiers of the larceny-type offense is that gaps or crevices have separated particular crimes of this general class and guilty men have escaped through the breaches. The books contain a surfeit of cases drawing fine distinctions between slightly different circumstances under which one may obtain wrongful advantages from another's property. The codifiers wanted to reach all such instances. Probably every stealing is a conversion, but certainly not every knowing conversion is a stealing. ”

“ Larceny is theft or stealing. The stealing of property above a certain amount in value is called grand larceny, and is a state prison offense. If the value of the property stolen is of less amount, the offense is called petit larceny, and is punished by fine or imprisonment in jail or both. ”

“ The value of anything else not fixed by statute is its market value. Grand larceny, in the first degree, is punishable by imprisonment not exceeding ten years; in the second degree, not exceeding five years. Petit larceny is a misdemeanour (Penal Code, §§ 530–535) . Bringing stolen goods into the state knowing them to be stolen is punishable as larceny within the state (id. § 540) . A “pay ticket” for removing a load of snow may be the subject of larceny and its value the amount to be paid on it. ”

“ The present situation results in a tendency on the part of the judge to construe as many cases as he can of "petit larceny" into "disorderly conduct." Very often a trivial theft is accompanied by acts which make it perfectly proper for the magistrate to overlook the larceny for the disorder. Certainly it is better for the offender, where possible, to be classed as a "disorderly" rather than as a thief. In the latter case he may, with the stigma thus fastened upon him, go forth to a life of crime; in the first he would never be regarded as a criminal. ”

“ Yet the theft of one is punishable always with two years' rigorous imprisonment; that is to say, the man is vindictively and uselessly punished, is turned into a confirmed criminal and ruined for life for failing at a momentary temptation. I have known cases where a man was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude for stealing a few rupees—a piece of savagery that the Court sought to justify by the fact that the man had committed several previous petty thefts. Of course, the reason of his repeated crime was the man's inability to earn a livelihood and exercise self-control. ”

“ The quadruple value included the stolen thing itself, so that the penalty was in effect only a triple one. It was inclusive, and not cumulative, as in furtum.
In England theft or larceny appears to have been very early regarded by legislators as a matter calling for special attention. The pre-Conquest compilations of laws are full of provisions on the subject. The earlier laws appear to regard it as a delict which may be compounded for by payment. Considerable distinctions of person are made, both in regard to the owner and the thief. ”

“ The term theft, sometimes used as a synonym of larceny, is in reality a broader term, applying to all cases of depriving another of his property whether by removing or withholding it, and includes larceny, robbery, cheating, embezzlement, breach of trust, &c. ”