"11, Blandford Square, "February 18th, 1875. "Mr. Greaves presents his respectful compliments to Mr. Justice Taschereau, and begs very cordially to thank him for his very valuable present, and still more so for the very great attention and weight which he has given to Mr. Greaves' notes and observations. It is indeed a very great gratification to Mr. Greaves to think that he may have been of some use towards the completion of the Canada Criminal Law. Mr. Greaves has not been able to do more than cursorily look into the book; but he has seen quite enough to satisfy him that it has been prepared with great care and ability; and he fully agrees with almost every remark in it, and especially with the objections to the new Larceny and Forgery clauses. On one point only, Mr. Greaves would crave leave to make the enclosed reply. Page 534 (of first Volume).-Greaves replies: "When an offence is committed through the agency of an innocent person, the employer, though absent when the act is done, is answerable as principal.-1 Russell, C. & M. 53; Kel. 52. If a madman, or a child not at years of discretion, commits murder or other felony on the incitement of another, the latter, though absent, is guilty as principal; otherwise he would be wholly unpunishable.--Foster, 349. Every act done by an innocent agent is in point of law exactly the same as if it were done at the same time and place by the employer. In burglary, if a man in the night breaks a window and inserts an instrument through the hole, and draws out any chattel, he is not only guilty of burglary with intent to steal, but of burglary and stealing in the house. The amotion by the instrument is the same as if it were by the prisoner's hand. Now, an innocent agent is merely the living instrument (Euxov ópyavov. Arist. Eth. 8, c. 13) of the employer. Then it is clear that any terror, which is sufficient to overpower a reasonably firm mind, will make an innocent agent; and the threats of an armed mob to a single individual are certainly sufficient to constitute such terror. In Leonard's case, therefore, the prosecutor was an innocent agent; and the moment he asported any of the provisions in the house a single inch, a larceny was committed in the house; and that was a larceny by the prisoner, for the prosecutor was his innocent agent. In the case put, therefore, the prisoner was guilty of larceny, though he never had the provisions; just as the inciter of an innocent agent is guilty of murder, though he may be miles off when the murder is committed. The rule as to innocent agency is exactly the same, whether the offence consists of an asportation, as in larceny, or of a single act, as in murder, by stabbing or shooting, The act is the act of the inciter in every case alike." In Farrell's case, 2 East, P. C. 557 (ante, Vol. I., 462), the defendant, upon meeting a man carrying a bed, told him to lay it down or he would shoot him, and the man accordingly laid down the bed; but the defendant, before he could take it up so as to remove it from the place where it lay, was apprehended. The Judges held that the robbery was not complete. Was there not amotion of the bed, from the prosecutor's hands or arms to the ground? Was not the prosecutor, then under the influence of terror caused by the defendant? Was not then, in law, the act by the prosecutor, in laying down the bed, the act of the prisoner? If so, ought not the prisoner to have been held guilty? FRASERVILLE, RIVER DU LOUP, EN BAS, P.Q., 2nd November, 1875. |