v. Railway Company. and such meeting and striking and shaking together as aforesaid, The Queen forced, cast, and thrown with great violence out of the said carriage in which he was so riding and being carried and conveyed as aforesaid, to, at, and upon the ground, by means whereof he, the said. Wm. Varnells, then and there did receive one mortal shock and concussion, and did also then and there receive divers mortal fractures of the right thigh of him, the said Wm. Varnells, and divers mortal lacerations, wounds, and bruises, in and upon the said right thigh and the right leg of him, the said Wm. Varnells, and did then and there also receive divers mortal lacerations and ruptures of the blood-vessels and arteries of the said thigh and leg of him, the said Wm. Varnells, of which said mortal shock and concussion, fractures, lacerations, wounds and bruises, and ruptures, he, the said Wm. Varnells, then and there, to wit, on the 21st day of November aforesaid, in the year aforesaid, at the parish aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, died; and so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the said Wm. Varnells, in manner and by the means aforesaid, accidentally, casually, and by misfortune, came to his death, and not otherwise; and that the said locomotive steamengines, tenders, and carriages above respectively mentioned were respectively moving to the death of the said Wm. Varnell, and are together of the value of one thousand pounds, and are the goods and chattels and in the possession of the Midland Railway Com pany. "In witness whereof, as well the said coroner as the jurors aforesaid have hereunto set and subscribed their hands and seals this 12th day of December, in the year aforesaid." Waddington, in last Michaelmas Term (Saturday, November 8), shewed cause. The first objection taken to this inquisition is, that it is not alleged to have been taken either on view of the body, or before a coroner of the county, or upon the oaths of a jury of the county; and the argument on that point will be, that those circumstances ought to have been stated separately with regard to each adjournment; but it is submitted that that cannot be necessary, inasmuch as the last clause of the sentence, commencing "before Christopher Swann, Gentleman," overrides and applies to the whole. The next objection is, that it does not appear within what county the mortal injuries were received; but the venue is Nottinghamshire, and the words "then and there" accompany the statement of every material fact. The third objection, that the time of receiving the mortal injury is not stated, is expressly cured by stat. 6 & 7 Vict. c. 83, s. 2. The three remaining objections are substantially the same; they amount to this, that it does not appear upon the face of the inquisition with sufficient clearness what were the chattels moving to the death, and in what way the collision happened. This objection depends mainly upon a grammatical error in the framing of the inquisition. The first sentence describing the progress of one train towards the town of Nottingham, has no grammatical termination; but the meaning is perfectly obvious, and if the Court will reject as surplusage the words, "which said steam-engine, tender, and carriages," the sentence will be complete and intelligible. In R. v. Edwards and Morris v. The Queen (1 Leach, 109), the Court rejected superfluous words in order to supThe Midland port an indictment. Then, as to the chattels moving to the death, Railway the jury have found, that the "engines, tenders, and carriages above Company. respectively mentioned, were respectively moving to the death;" and that is sufficient. It is quite unnecessary to set out the mode in which the different chattels contribute to cause the death; and indeed, it could not well have been stated with more particularity than it is. Of course, if the death had been occasioned by a blow from one of the carriages, that ought to have been stated, but the deceased being thrown out of the carriage, was killed by the violence of the shock; and the inquisition in this respect accurately describes the occurrence. The rule of law, "omnia quæ movent ad mortem sunt deodanda," does not apply only to those chattels which immediately cause the death, but the forfeiture extends to every other chattel in motion with the principal chattel. Omne quod movet eo, quod hominem occidit, deodandum. (Fitz. Cor. 403; Staun. P. C. lib. 1, c. 12, f. 20, a; and Case of the Lord of the Manor of Hampstead, 1 Salk. 220; Jervis on Coroners, cap. 7; 1 Stark. Cr. Pl. 247.) [The stat. 9 Vict. c. 62, abolishes deodands from and after 1st September, 1846.] M. D. Hill and K. Macaulay, (a) contrà.-The late stat. (6 & 7 Vict. c. 83) shews, at all events, that before that time very technical objections had been upheld; and although it cures some of those objections, it leaves others untouched. Now, first, this inquisition does not shew that the whole proceedings were taken upon oath at all, or upon view of the body; but only that the proceedings after the last adjournment were so; and a view of the body is necessary before going into the inquest. (R. v. Ferrand, 3 B. & Ald. 260.) [COLERIDGE, J.-Words intended to override the whole of a sentence are properly placed at the end of it; and here at the very commencement of the document, it is called an "inquisition," which it could not be without a jury.] jury.] The great fault is in stating the adjournments at all. [COLERIDGE, J.-Then if that be struck out, the inquisition would clearly be good.] Secondly, at all events, the description of the collision is insufficient. The first sentence is left incomplete. [WILLIAMS, J.—But does it not involve an allegation that the train was proceeding towards Nottingham?] Every material fact ought to be directly and positively averred; but here there is only a series of nominative cases, which it is proposed to convert into a positive averment by rejecting certain words; and if words are to be rejected, it would be quite as easy to form a sentence that would not support as one that would support the deodand. In R. v. The Midland Counties Railway Company (b) this Court, a short time ago, quashed an inquisition on this very ground, that a (a) The rule in this case had been obtained partly upon affidavits, and partly for defects apparent on the face of the inquisition; but it was admitted by Hill that the affidavits were answered. No concilium had been in fact obtained; but Waddington objected that Macaulay should not be heard, on the ground that the same rule must apply as if the argument were upon a concilium; and R. v. Brownlow (11 Ad. & Ell. 125) was referred to. The Court heard Macaulay; and Waddington was allowed to reply; but Lord Denman, C.J., having consulted Mr. Robinson, said that it was not to be considered a precedent, and that probably the proper course would have been to have had the rule discharged on the facts, and then to have applied for a concilium, preparatory to the argument upon the objections arising on the face of the inquisition. (b) Not reported. v. The Midland Company. part of the narrative was rendered insensible by the interposition of the The Queen Waddington, in reply, cited R. v. Stevens (5 B. & C. 246, 259). LORD DENMAN, C.J., now delivered the judgment of the Court -In this case, the coroner's inquisition, after stating that it was taken in a way which has been made the subject of many objections, that we need not dispose of, goes on to say, that "in the parish of Lenton, in the county aforesaid, a certain locomotive steam-engine, numbered 48, with a certain tender attached thereto and worked thereby, and also with divers, to wit, three, carriages for the conveyance of passengers for hire on a certain railroad or tramway, called the Midland Railway, there situate, and which said carriages respectively were then and there attached and fastened together to the said tender, and were then and there propelled by the said locomotive engine, and which said engine, tender, and carriages were then and there moving and travelling along the said railway, and then moving towards the town of Nottingham; and the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath, say." It then proceeds to set out that another engine, tender, and carriages, coming in an opposite direction, met the first; and that so the collision took place, and the death was caused. Now, without entering at all into any of the other objections, we think that this is not sufficient as it stands. The only way in which it can be made sensible is by rejecting the words as surplusage, and considering the inquisition as if they were not contained in it; and for this course the case of R. v. Edwards and Morris (1 Leach, 109) was cited; where, Francis Morris being the party charged, it was laid that "the said Thomas Morris, well knowing, &c.; and it was held that that would do; because, though Thomas could not be the same as Francis, yet they might reject the word "Thomas" altogether, and Francis would stand as the person "well knowing;" but that perhaps is not a very satisfactory authority; especially in a case like this, where it is not clear that there are words in the inquisition, by rejecting which the sentence could be made intelligible. Here is a nominative case without a verb; the object is described, but there is no conclusion stated respecting it; and we cannot supply by conjecture something which the jury might have intended to find, but have not found. It is possible that there may have been an omission or suppression of that part which would have shewn the facts; but we cannot tell what that might have been, as the case now stands. This is an example of a document, in which there are introduced some mere words which The Queen state nothing; it is clearly not a matter for amendment, and we are The Midland obliged to say that the inquisition must be quashed. v Railway Company. Rule absolute. The Queen V. Elizabeth CROWN CASE RESERVED. Saturday, April 25, 1846. (Before LORD DENMAN, C.J., TINDAL, C.J., POLLOCK, C.B., PATTESON, WILLIAMS, COLTMAN, CRESSWELL, and ERLE, JJ., and PARKE, ROLFE, and PLATT, BB) THE QUEEN V. ELIZABETH JONES. (a) Larceny of a post-office letter-Intercepting a post letter, and burning it— Lucri causá. A servant about to quit the service of her mistress applied to another person for u THE The rest HE prisoner was indicted before the Lord Chief Baron, at the last assizes for the county of Hereford, for stealing a post letter, and was convicted upon her own confession, subject to the opinion of the judges upon the following case: The prisoner, Elizabeth Jones, pleaded guilty to an indictment under 1 Vict. c. 36, s. 28, for stealing, at Ross, from an officer of the post-office, a post letter, the property of her Majesty's Postmaster-General. The prisoner had been cook in the employ of Mrs. Garbett, of Upton Bishop, whose service she was about to leave, having herself given notice to do so, and was in treaty with a Mrs. Dangerfield, of Cheltenham, for a similar situation. Mrs. Dangerfield had consented to employ her, if a satisfactory answer from Mrs. Garbett should be returned to a letter to be written for the purpose of making inquiries respecting her character; this letter, the subject of the present indictment, was written by Mrs. Dangerfield, directed to Mrs. Garbett, and posted at Cheltenham and was from thence duly forwarded to the post-office at Ross. Mrs. Garbett having found fault with the prisoner for allowing the friend of another servant to breakfast in the kitchen without her leave, discharged her from her service, and told her that a character would not be given to her. The day after her dismissal she went to the post-office at Ross, and there applied to the clerk on duty for the letter from Cheltenham, addressed to Mrs. Garbett, stating that she was a servant in Mrs. Garbett's employ, and that Mrs. Garbett (a) Reported by A. BITTLESTON, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. expected a letter from Cheltenham that morning, which she was to take; but upon being informed that the one letter by itself could not be given, she first took from the post-office all the letters for Mr. and Mrs. Garbett, including that written by Mrs. Dangerfield, and then selected the one which was the subject of the present indictment, and burnt it, but delivered the others to the person who was in the habit of conveying the letters from the Ross post-office to the inhabitants of Upton Bishop, and they reached Mr. and Mrs. Garbett in safety. The question for the opinion of the judges is, whether the taking and destroying of the letter, under these circumstances, amounted to larceny. Huddleston, for the prisoner. This is a conviction upon an indictment under the 28th section of stat. 1 Vict. c. 36, and to support it, all the ingredients of a larceny at common law must appear; but here there is a total absence of one material ingredient, viz., the lucri causâ. All the definitions of larceny, impliedly or expressly, show that the taking, to be felonious, must be animo furandi and lucri causá. (4 Blacks. Com. 229; 2 East's P. C. c. 16, s. 2; and per Grose, J., in R. v. Hammond, 2 Leach, 1089.) It is not contended that the lucrum, as here used, means only pecuniary gain; it is satisfied by proof of any advantage which may be measured by a pecuniary amount; and its meaning is well illustrated by the sentence in Terence-" Quid mihi lucri est te fallere?" Some decisions have certainly carried the meaning of that word very far; as in the case of a servant stealing his master's corn to give to his master's horses (R. v. Morfit, R. & R. 307; (a) R. v. Gruncell, 9 Car. & P. 365); (b) but that is an extent which the Criminal Law Commissioners have designated as ridiculous. R. v. Cabbage (Russ. & Ry. 292) does not support the marginal note, which states that it is not necessary that the taking should be lucri causâ; for in that case there was the greatest advantage to one of the parties concerned, and it is not necessary that the motive of gain should actuate the whole of a party; if one is to gain some advantage and the rest act in concert with him, it is enough. The prisoner iu that case had broken into the prosecutor's stable and taken away a horse, which he backed into a pit and killed; his object being to screen an accomplice by the destruction of evidence which would be produced against him. In the cases of R. v. Handley (Car. & M. 574), Re Jacklin 1 New S. C. 280; 13 L. J. N. S. M. C. 139), R. v. Richards 1 Car. & K. 532), and R. v. Byton (Dickenson's Q. S. 226, 5th edit.), although an extended meaning was given to the words lucri causâ, still it was held to be a necessary ingredient in the offence. Now here there was no gain or advantage to the prisoner by intercepting and destroying the letter; it was a letter which she herself had (a) R. v. Morfit (R. & R. C. C. 307).—In this case the prisoners, who were servants in husbandry, opened the granary of their master, by means of a false key, and took thereout two bushels of beans to give to their master's horses, in addition to the quantity usually allowed, and were held by a majority of the judges properly convicted of larceny; it being considered by some of them, that as the additional quantity of beans would diminish the work of the men, who had to take care of the horses, the lucri causa was an ingredient in their offence. (b) R. v. Gruncell (9 Car. & P. 365).-In this case a servant was convicted under similar circumstances, of stealing his master's hay, he having taken it from the master's stable and put it into his master's waggon. The Queen v. Elizabeth Jones. |