Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/264

 250 FEDEEAL BEPOETER. �or fraudulent intent, it is not to be confined to that specifie intent wMch charaoterizes larceny. 1 Bish. Crim. Law, §§ 345, 344, 343, 207, 206, 205; 1 Whart. Crim. Law, § 297; 2 Whart. Crim. Law, §§ 1794, 1800. �It is said by a learned annotator that the finder of a lost article of goods may have three motives — (1) To keep it and use it as his own; (2) to keep it for the ovmer when ascertained ; (3) to keep it for a reward. 2 Ben. & Heard, Lead. Crim. Cas. (2d Ed.) 431. To which may be added, in cases like this, that of depriving the owner of his property by destruction, if that can be an intent independent of that to use it ae property belonging to the finder, or supposed by him to belong to himself, as in this case. I am unable to see any other motive, and the ingenuity of counsel bas not satisfactorily suggested any; and I eharged the jury in thia case that if the second and third of these motives existed this statute was not violated, but if any other were found it was, and, it seems to me, clearly so. It was said in argu- ment one might drag goods from the river to see if worth saving^ and, on examination, supposing them worthless, immediately cast them back. I understand the authorities to hold that if kept but for a moment with the unlawful intent the crime is complete. 2 Whart. Crim. Law, § 1789. So, if in the case put the intent were to appropriate the goods to his own use, the statute would be violated ; but if it were to save them for the owner it would not. However, if excused in the case suggested it would not be for want of unlawful intent, but because the act of taking had not been completed. �I consider the case of the U. S. v. Pitman, 1 Sprague, 196,— and see The Missouri's Cargo, Id. 260, for a fuller statement of facts, — as a direct authority, in support of the charge given to the jury. The learned counsel for the defendant, who have defended this case with a pertinacity and zeal that charaoterizes all they do, and a profes- sional ability that could not be surpassed, — and I say this sincerely, and not to assuage defeat, — have gone into an elaborate argument and citation of authorities to show that the learned judge in that case uses the word "embezzlement" as the synonym of "larceny," which, it is said, was the crime committed, and also that Chancellor Kent and other judges have so used the word. I shall not stop to inquire whether Pitman could have been convicted of larceny at com- mon law, but I doubt it. I think, however, that the court in that case did not so use the word, but rather in the sense used in the maritime law, as any fraudulent taking by the crew of parts of the cargo. 1 Bouv. Die, word, "Embezzlement;" 1 Abb. Dict., sama ��� �