Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/261

 ONIiED STATES V. STONE. 247 �take no jurisdiction of theff upon the high seas, but committeA the offender to answer iu the admiralty. The second English statute of 1 Vict. c. 87, § 8, uses the words "plunder oi steal," as dues the latest, 24 and 25 Vict. c. 96, § 64, without the proviso, and, with the exception of the word "destroy," the act is the same as our act of 1825, which was enacted before any of the English statutes. 2 Kuss. Crimes, 150; 3 Fish. Dig. (Jacob's Ed.) 3322; 1 Bish. Crim. Lav, § 141. In Carter v. Andrews, 16 Pick. 1, in a slander case, it was said that though the word "plunder," in its ordinary meaning, imports a wrongful acquisition of property, yet it does not express the precise nature of the wrong done. �" The most common meaning," says Mr. Chief Justice Shaw, " of this term ' plunder ' is to take property from persons or places by ppen force, as in the case of pirates or banditti. But in another and very common meaning, though perhaps in some degree figurative, according to the general tendency of men to exaggerate and apply stronger language than the case will warrant, it is used to express the idea of taking property from a person or place without just rjght, but not expressing the nature or quality of the wrong done. Like many such terms, as pillaging, rifling, pilf ering, embezzling, swindling, pecu- lation, and many ofcher like ambiguous term's which have not acquired, either in law or philology, a precise or definite meaning, they express the idea of wrongful acquisition, but not the nature of the wrong done." Page 9. �The same thing may be said of the word "steal," though itis not as indefinite as "plunder." It is generally used to express the crime of larceny, — which is the purely technical word, about the meaning of which there can be no doubt,— and in a slander case it would need no innuendo or colloquium to give it force. Yet we often use it in a sense nqt synonymous with larceny, as when we speak of stealing a child, stealing a wife, stealing a thought, stealing land, stealing a literary composition, or the like. One of the definitions is "to ;take without right or leave." Thc primary idea of the word is stealth, or a secret, concealed, or clandestine taking; but it is qnite as often applied to open taking, and is used interphangeably with "rob," which is defined "to take away" without right — to steal; "to take anything awayfrom, by nnlawful force or secret theft — to plunder; to strip." Worcest. pict„words, "Steal," "Eob;" Webst. Dict., same words and."Pur- loin;" 2 Bouv. Dict., word, "Stealing;" 2 Abb. Law Diet., word, "Steal." I do not tind the word "steal" used in defining larceny in any of the comnion-law authorities cited by Mr. Bishop, or elsewhere, from Lord Coke down. 2 Bish. Crim. Law, § 758, and notes ; 1 Bish. Crim. Law,.§ 566 ; 2 Whart. Crinx. Law, § 1750. And the truth is, Ithink, itis jioi( .a technical word, in the: strict senge of that term, but a «omi ��� �