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STEALING POST LETTER BAGS, ETC.

326. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life, or for any term not less than three years who steals

(a) a post letter bag; or

(b) a post letter from a post letter bag, or from any post office, or from any officer or person employed in any business of the post office of Canada, or from a mail; or

(e) a post letter containing any chattel, money or valuable security; or (d) any chattel, money or valuable security from or out of a post letter. R. S. C. c. 35, ss. 79, 80 & 81. 7 Wm. IV. & 1 V. c. 36 (Imp.).

"Valuable security" defined, s. 3.

See s. 4, ante, as to meaning of words in enactments relating to post office, and s. 624, post, as to indictment. Indictment.- that A. B., on unlawfully did steal one post letter, the property of the postmastergeneral, from a post letter bag (or from a post office) (or a post letter containing a sum of money) (or a sum of money out of a post letter).

To unlawfully open a post letter bag is punishable by five years: ss. 82, 89, c. 35, R. S. C.; see R. v. Jones, 1 Den. 188; R. v. Pearce, 2 East P. C. 603; R. v. Poynton, L. & C. 247.

STEALING LETTERS, ETC.

327. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding seven years, and not less than three years, who steals

(a) any post letter, except as mentioned in paragraph (b) of section three hundred and twenty-six;

(b) any parcel sent by parcel post, or any article contained in any such parcel; or

(c) any key suited to any lock adopted for use by the Post Office Department, and in use on any Canada mail or mail bag. R. S. C. c. 35,. ss. 79, 83 & 88.

See under preceding section.

STEALING OTHER MAILABLE MATTER.

328. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to five years' imprisonment who steals any printed vote or proceeding, newspaper, printed paper or book, packet or package of patterns or samples of merchandise or goods, or of seeds, cuttings, bulbs, roots, scions or grafts, or any post card or other mailable matter (not being a post letter) sent by mail. R. S. C. c. 35,.

Fine, s. 958; see remarks under s. 326, ante.

STEALING ELECTION DOCUMENTS.

329. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to a fine in the discretion of the court, or to seven years' imprisonment, or to both fine and imprisonment who steals, or unlawfully takes from any person having the lawful custody thereof, or from its lawful place of deposit for the time being, any writ of election, or any return to a writ of election, or any indenture, poll-book, voters' list, certificate, affidavit or report, ballot or any document or paper made, prepared or drawn out according to or for the requirements of any law in regard to Dominion, provincial, municipal or civic elections. R. S. C. c 8, s. 102; c. 164, s. 56.

The words in italics are new. S. 102, c. 8, R. S. C. is unrepealed. See under s. 551, post, a reference to the above section.

STEALING RAILWAY TICKETS, ETC.

330. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to two years' imprisonment who steals any tramway, railway or steamboat ticket, or any order or receipt for a passage on any railway or in any steamboat or other vessel. R. S. C. c. 164, s. 16.

Fine, s. 958.

STEALING CATTLE.

331. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to fourteen years' imprisonment who steals any cattle. R. S. C. c. 164, ss. 7 & 8.

See ante, s. 3, for interpretation of the word cattle.

that J. S. on

at

one

Indictment.horse of the goods and chattels of J. N. unlawfully did steal. (The indictment must give the animal one of the descriptions mentioned in the statute; otherwise the defendant can be punished as for simple larceny merely): R. v. Beaney, R. & R. 416.

If a person go to an inn, and direct the ostler to bring out his horse, and point out the prosecutor's horse as his, and the ostler leads out the horse for the prisoner to mount, but, before the prisoner gets on the horse's back, the owner of the horse comes up and seizes him, the offence of horse-stealing is complete: R. v. Pitman, 2 C. & P. 423.

The prisoners enter another's stable at night, and take out his horses, and ride them 32 miles, and leave them at an inn, and are afterwards found pursuing their journey on foot. On a finding by the jury that the prisoners took the

horses merely with intent to ride and afterwards leave them, and not to return or make any further use of them, held, trespass and not larceny: R. v. Philipps, 2 East, P. C. 662. But now, it would be theft under s. 305, ante.

If a horse be purchased and delivered to the buyer, it is no felony though he immediately ride away with it without paying the purchase money: R. v. Harvey, 1 Leach, 467.

If a person stealing other property take a horse, not with intent to steal it, but only to get off more conveniently with the other property, such taking of the horse is not a felony: R. v. Crump, 1 C. & P. 658.

Obtaining a horse under the pretense of hiring it for a day, and immediately selling it, is a felony at common law if the jury find the hiring was animo furandi: R. v. Pear, 1 Leach, 212; R. v. Charlewood, 1 Leach, 409: see now s. 305, ante. It is larceny (at common law) for a person hired for the special purpose of driving sheep to a fair to convert them to his own use, the jury having found that he intended so to do at the time of receiving them from the owner: R. v. Stock, 1 Moo. 87; see now s. 305, ante. Where the defendant removed sheep from the fold into the open field, killed them, and took away the skins merely, the judges held that removing the sheep from the fold was a sufficient driving away to constitute larceny: R. v. Rawlins, 2 East P. C. 617.

Any variance between the indictment and the proof, in the description of the animal stolen, may be amended: s. 723, post; R. v. Gumble, 12 Cox, 248.

STEALING DOGS, BIRDS, ETC.

332. Every one is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding twenty dollars over and above the value of the property stolen, or to one months' imprisonment with hard labour, who steals any deg, or any bird, beast or other animal ordinarily kept in a state of confinement or for any domestic purpose, or for any lawful purpose of profit or advantage.

2. Every one who, having been convicted of any such offence, afterwards commits any such offence is liable to three months' imprisonment with hard labour. R. S. C. c. 164, s. 9. 24-25 V. c. 96, ss. 18, 21 (Imp.).

The words in italics are not in the English Act.

For injuries to such animals, see s. 501, post.

KILLING PIGEONS, ETC.

333. Every one who unlawfully and wilfully kills, wounds or takes any house-dove or pigeon, under such circumstances as do not amount to theft, is guilty of an offence and liable, upon complaint of the owner thereof, on summary conviction, to a penalty not exceeding ten dollars over and above the value of the bird: R. S. C. c. 164, s. 10. 24-25 V. c. 96, s. 23 (Imp.).

The words in italics are new.

This clause does not extend to killing pigeons under a claim of right: Taylor v. Newman, 9 Cox, 314, 4 B. & S. 89; see ante, s. 304, and note.

This section is out of place. It ought to be under Part XXXVII. post.

STEALING OYSTERS.

334. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to seven years' imprisonment who steals oysters or oyster brood.

2. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to three months imprisonment who unlawfully and wilfully uses any dredge or net, instrument or engine whatsoever, within the limits of any oyster bed, laying or fishery,. being the property of any other person, and sufficiently marked out or known as such, for the purpose of taking oysters or oyster brood, although none are actually taken, or unlawfully and wilfully with any net, instrument or engine,, drags upon the ground of any such fishery.

3. Nothing herein applies to any person fishing for or catching any swimming fish within the limits of any oyster fishery with any net, instrument. or engine adapted for taking swimming fish only. R. S. C. c. 164, s. 11. 24-25, V. c. 96, s. 26 (Imp.).

See s. 304, s-s. 5, ante, and s. 619 (e), post.

Indictment for stealing oysters or oyster brood.— from a certain oyster-bed called

the property of J. N. and sufficiently marked out and known as the property of the said J. N., one thousand oysters unlawfully did steal.

Indictment for using a dredge in the oyster fishery of another.within the limits of a certain oyster-bed

called

the property of J. N., and sufficiently marked out and known as the property of the said J. N., unlawfully

and wilfully did use a certain dredge for the purpose of then and there taking oysters.

In support of an indictment for stealing oysters in a tidal river it is sufficient to prove ownership by oral evidence as, for instance, that the prosecutor and his father for forty-five years had exercised the exclusive right of oyster fishing in the locus in quo, and that in 1846 an action had been brought to try the right, and the verdict given in favour of the prosecutor: R. v. Downing, 11 Cox, 580.

STEALING THINGS FIXED TO BUILDINGS

335. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to seven years' imprisonment who steals any glass or woodwork belonging to any building whatsoever, or any lead, iron, copper, brass or other metal, or any utensil or fixture, whether made of metal or other material, or of both, respectively fixed in or to any building whatsoever, or anything made of metal fixed in any land, being private property, or for a fence to any dwelling-house, garden or area, or in any square or street, or in any place dedicated to public use or ornament, or in any burial ground. R. S. C. c. 164, s. 17.

The repealed section covered the "ripping, severing, cutting and breaking" of the things therein specified, as well as the stealing thereof.

At common law larceny could not be committed of things attached to the freehold. Hence, the necessity heretofore of such statutory enactments.

Code they are perfectly useless.

But in this

This part of the Commissioners' draft, recopied verbatim in this Code, well says Sir James Stephens, "is needlessly minute, and shows an undue anxiety to avoid changes in the existing law which might greatly simplify it": 3 Stephen's Hist. 167. It would have been better perhaps to leave out such a provision as this one contained in s. 335 than the one relating to the stealing of promissory notes and other valuable securities as has been done in s. 353, post.

This enactment extends the offence much further than the prior Acts did, as it includes all utensils and fixtures of whatever materials made, either fixed to buildings or in land, or in a square or street. A church, and indeed all

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