purposes, as forming part of that county of which it is considered a part, for the purposes of the election of members to serve in Parliament as knights of the shire," under the 2 & 3 Wm. 4, c. 64; provided that nothing herein contained shall alter the county, riding, or division to which any such detached part shall be deemed to belong for the purpose of holding inquests under the 6 & 7 Vict. c. 12.(ƒ) By the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 55, s. 19, "whenever any justice or justices of the peace, or coroner, acting for any county of a city or county of a town corporate within which Her Majesty has not been pleased for five years next before the passing of this Act to direct a commission of Oyer and Terminer and gaol delivery to be executed, and until Her Majesty shall be pleased to direct a commission of Oyer and Terminer and gaol delivery to be executed within the same, shall commit for safe custody to the gaol or house of correction of such county of a city or town any person charged with any offence committed within the limits of such county of a city or town not triable at the court of quarter sessions of the said county of a city or county of a town, the commitment shall specify that such person is committed pursuant to this Act, and the recognizances to appear to prosecute and give evidence taken by such justice, justices, or coroner shall in all such cases be conditioned for appearance, prosecution, and giving evidence at the court of Oyer and Terminer and gaol delivery for the next adjoining county; and whenever any such person shall be so committed, the keeper of such gaol or house of correction shall deliver to the judges of assize for such next adjoining county a calendar of all prisoners in his custody so committed, in the same way that the sheriff of the county would be by law required to do if such prisoners had been committed to the common gaol of such adjoining county; and the justice, justices, or coroner by whom persons charged as aforesaid may be committed, shall deliver or cause to be delivered to the proper officer of the court the several examinations, informations, evidences, recognizances, and inquisitions relative to such persons at the time and in the manner that would be required in case such persons had been committed to the gaol of such adjoining county by a justice or justices, or coroner, having authority so to commit, and the same proceedings shall and may be had thereupon, at the sessions of Oyer and Terminer or general gaol delivery for such adjoining county as in the case of persons charged with offences of the like nature committed within such county." The venue in the margin of an indictment was "county of Norfolk, being the next adjoining county to the borough of *Yarmouth;" the offence was com*337] mitted in the parish of Gorlestone, in the county of Suffolk. The whole of that parish is within the jurisdiction of the borough of Great Yarmouth, and the prisoner had been committed by the borough magistrates to the house of correction at Great Yarmouth. It was objected that the prisoner could not be tried in Norfolk. Pollock, C. B.: "The words of the statute are, that in such a case as this the prisoner shall be tried in the next adjoining county.' Here the next adjoining county was either Norfolk or Suffolk. The place in the borough where the offence was committed has nothing to do with it. This would very likely have been a good trial in Suffolk, but I think that it is also a good trial in Norfolk.”(g) Some evidence is requisite as to the loss of the property, and where it appears that it was last in the possession of a person, either that person should be called, or some evidence given to show the loss, for otherwise it may be that it has been delivered by that person to the prisoner, or to some one else from whom the prisoner may have received it, or, indeed, it may have been lost. Upon an indictment for stealing a horse, the prosecutor proved that he had put the horse to be agisted with a person who resided twelve miles distant from his own residence, and, in conse quence of hearing of its loss from that person, he went to the field where the horse had been put, and disccvered that it was gone. Gurney, B.: "I think you should prove the loss more distinctly, because non constat but the prisoners might have (f) Sec. 2. The detached parts are to belong to the adjoining hundred, &c., or to form a separate hundred. Sec. 4. "No judicial proceeding or deed or other instrument in writing shall be invalidated by reason of any error in stating the name of the county to which such detached portion originally belonged, instead of the county to which it will belong under this Act, or the converse." (g) Reg. v. Gallant, 1 F. & F. 517. obtained possession of the horse honestly. I do not see how we can get at that without the person with whom it was put to agist, or his servant. It is perfectly consistent with what has been proved that the horse might have got out of this person's possession in some other way, and not by felony."(h) So where, on a similar indictment, it appeared that a servant was sent to turn out a horse in a field, and was sent to fetch it up again the next morning, when it was missed, but the servant was not called as a witness, and the prisoner was found in possession of the horse the next day; it was held, that there was not sufficient proof given of the loss; and that the servant ought to have been called to prove what he did with the horse, as for anything that appeared to the contrary, the servant might have delivered the horse to the prisoner.(i) With regard to the evidence in cases of larceny, it generally consists (unless the prisoner is detected in the fact,) of proof of the felony having been committed,1 and of the goods stolen having been found shortly afterwards in the possession of the prisoner; and upon such proof the general rule will attach, that wherever the property of one man, which has been taken from him without his knowledge or consent, is found upon another, it is incumbent on that other to prove how he came by it; otherwise the presumption is, that he obtained it feloniously.(j) This rule, founded on the necessity of the case, which cannot admit offences of this kind *to go [*338 unpunished, wherever positive and direct evidence is wanting of the guilt of (h) Rex v. Yend, 6 C. & P. 176 (61 E. C. L. R.), and MSS., C. S. G. (k) That it will sometimes, like every other rule of human institution, fail to guide rightly must be admitted. Lord Hale mentions a case, which he says was tried before a very learned and wary judge where a man was condemned and executed for horse-stealing upon proof of his having been apprehended with the horse shortly after it was stolen; and afterwards it came out that the real thief being closely pursued, had overtaken the poor man upon the road, and asked him to walk the horse for him while he turned aside upon a necessary occasion, upon which the thief made his escape, and the man was apprehended with the horse: 2 Hale 289. And it is probable that, upon this rule, receivers of stolen goods are frequently convicted of stealing them. 1 State v. Kent, 65 N. C. 311. 2 State v. Merrick, 19 Maine 398. The possession of stolen goods is a presumption of guilt, and this presumption is not rebutted by the lapse of two months between the theft and finding: State v. Bennett, 3 Brev. 514. The finding of a thing stolen in the possession of the accused, affords evidence to some extent that he took it; which evidence, ordinarily is stronger or weaker in proportion to the length of time intervening between the stealing and the finding: State v. Williams, 9 Ired. 140. The fact that a portion of the chattels were found upon the premises of the accused eighteen months after they were stolen, unaccompanied by other suspicious circumstances, is not primâ facie evidence that the accused was guilty of larceny: Warren v. State, 1 Iowa 106. In a prosecution for larceny, the fact that the stolen property is found upon the person of the defendant can always be given in evidence against him; but the strength of the presumption which it raises against the accused depends upon all the circumstances surrounding the case: Bennett v. State, 1 Swan. 411. Possession of stolen property, to raise a presumption of guilt, must be recently after the theft: State v. Floyd, 15 Mo. 349. For other cases on the evidence arising from the possession of the stolen property, see Curtis v. State, 6 Cold. 9; State v. Brady, 27 Iowa 126; Billard v. State, 30 Texas 367; Garcia State, 26 Texas 209; State v. Creson, 38 Mo. 372; People v. Caneff, 2 Parker C. R. 586; State v. Williams, 2 Jones (Law) 194; People v. Kelly, 28 Cal. 423; State v. Gray. 37 Mo. 463; Conkwright v. People, 35 III. 204; State v. Taylor, 25 Iowa 273; State v. Brown, Ibid. 561; Unger v. State, 42 Miss. 642; Knickerbocker v. People, 43 N. Y. 177; State v. Turner, 65 N. C. 592; Comm. v. Bell, 102 Mass. 163; Heed v. State, 25 Wis. 421; State v. Due, 7 Foster 256; People v. Mahoney, 18 Cal. 180; People v. Chambers, Ibid. It has been held that the possession of stolen property sixteen months,(1) or six months,(m) or three months(n) after it was lost, is not such a recent possession as to put the prisoner upon showing how he came by it, unless there be evidence of something more than the mere fact of possession at such a distance of time after the loss. Where a prisoner was indicted for stealing two sacks, which had been found about twenty days after they were missed, Coleridge, J., told the jury, “If I was now to lose my watch, and in a few minutes it was to be found on the person of one of you, it would afford the strongest ground for presuming that you had stolen it; but if a month hence it were to be found in your possession, the presumption would be greatly weakened, because stolen property usually passes through many hands."(0) The prisoner was charged in one count with stealing a riddle on the 20th September, 1862, and in another with stealing five shovels on the 16th of January, 1863, the property of his masters. He had been in their employ some years; the riddle and shovels were found in his possession; the riddle in his back yard, one shovel in his coal-house, another in his garden covered with ashes, and three others in a distant pigsty of the prisoner's; and a witness proved that in the beginning of January the prisoner brought some tools to his yard where the pigsty was, and stated he had brought them to put at the top of the pigsty to be out of the way. The brand mark had been erased from some of the shovels, and the prisoner's initials substituted The prosecutor's foreman stated that it was impossible to say when the articles were taken; but a witness had seen a riddle similar to the one in question on the prosecutor's premises in the summer of 1862. It was on the 21st January, 1863, that the riddle and shovels were found. It was objected that the riddle not being proved to have been in the possession of the prosecutors for upwards of eighteen months, and the shovels for not less than eight months, there was no sufficiently recent possession by the prisoner proved; the objection was overruled, and, on a case reserved, it was held that it was rightly overruled.(00) It is impossible to ascertain the correct dates in this report. Recent possession of stolen property is evidence either that the person in possession stole the property, or that he received it knowing it to have been stolen. The prisoner had two sons, one aged eight, the other twelve, and his servant proved that in the week before Christmas his master and his sons went in a car to Sticklepath, and he went thither with them to open the gates. Another witness proved that she saw a flock of sheep driven through Sticklepath early in the morning, when it was bright moonlight, by two boys, and it was her impression that they were the prisoner's boys. Sticklepath is seventeen or eighteen miles from Exeter; the prosecutor's farm was twenty-two miles from Exeter, and the prisoner's farm was about a quarter of a mile from the prosecutor's. The servant of Smith, a cattle dealer, went on the 23d of December to Little John's Cross Inn by his master's direction. The inn was a mile from Exeter; and seeing that no sheep had passed, he went half a mile on the road, and then met one of the prisoner's boys with twenty-one (1) Rex v. 2 C. & P. 459 (12 E. C. L. R.), Bayley, J. It is not stated what the goods were. (m) Reg. v Cooper, 3 C. & K. 318, Maule, J. Nothing but possession of a horse: Reg. c. Harris, 8 Cox C. C. 333, s. c., as to a sheep, though the prisoner had made contradictory statements when it was found, Channell, B.; Reg. v. Hall, 1 Cox C. C. 231, Pollock, C. B., & Coleridge, J, S. P. (n) Rex v. Adams, 3 C. & P. 600 (14 E. C. L. R.), Parke, J. The goods found in the possession of the prisoner were an axe, a saw, and a mattock. See Reg. v. Hewlitt, post, vol. iii., p. 216, Evidence. (0) Cockin's case, 2 Lew. 235. (00) Rex v. Knight, L. & C. 378. 382; Graves v. State, 12 Wis. 591; People v. Gassaway, 23 Cal. 51; State v. Wohlman, 34 Mo. 482; State v. Bruin, Ibid. 537; Comm. v. Millard, 1 Mass. 6; State v. Shaw, 4 Jones (Law) 440; Jones v. State, 30 Miss. 653; People v. Ai Ki, 20 Cal. 177; Walker v. State, 28 Geo. 254; Belote v. State, 36 Miss. 96; Gregory v. Richards, 8 Jones (Law) 410; State v. Johnson, 1 Wins. 238; People v. Antonio, 27 Cal. 404; Jones v. State, 26 Miss. 247; Hughes v. State, 8 Humph. 75. It is not enough to convict that the property was found in the possession of the prisoner a considerable time after the theft. The length of time depends on the circumstances of each case: Jones v. State, 26 Miss. 247. sheep, and returned with him and the sheep to the inn, where he saw the prisoner and his other boy. The sheep seemed weary with travelling, and it was about halfpast eight when they were first met. The prisoner and the two boys went with the man to put the sheep in a field. The prisoner came to the inn at eight o'clock with his youngest boy in a car. He said he had sheep coming along the road, and he wished to stop them in the yard till he got keep for them. The cattle dealer proved that he had received a letter from the prisoner on the 22d December, stating that he should have some sheep coming on, and that he would be early at Little John's Cross Inn and that if the cattle dealer could not be there to deal for them, he was to send some person to show where to put the sheep in his field: and he accordingly sent his man, and in the evening, after a long bargaining, he bought the sheep of the prisoner. The sheep of the prosecutor were proved to have been among these sheep. The prisoner had said that he had bought a portion, or all of the sheep, but did not say from whom, or when. In his letter he said he had bought a small lot of sheep, and he would have them driven to Exeter on the 23d. The jury found the prisoner guilty of receiving the sheep knowing them to have been stolen; it was then urged that there was no evidence to support that count, and that the jury ought to have been so directed; but, upon a case reserved upon the question whether, upon the whole case, the jury should have been directed that they could not lawfully find the prisoner guilty upon the second count, the conviction was affirmed. Pollock, C. B., "If no other person is involved in the transaction, and the whole of the case against the prisoner is that he was found in possession of the stolen property, the evidence would no doubt point to a case of stealing rather than a case of receiving; but in every case, except indeed where the possession is so recent that it is impossible for any one else to have committed the theft, it becomes a mere question for the jury whether the person found in possession of the stalen property stole it himself or received it from some one else. If there is no other evidence, the jury will probably consider, with reason, that the prisoner stole the property; but if there is other evidence, which is consistent either with his having stolen the property, or with his having received it from some one else, it will be for the jury to say which appears to them the more probable solution." Byles, J., "There are three ways in which the prisoner may have received these sheep with a guilty knowledge. First, the boys may have stolen them independently of their father, who may have received the sheep from them. Secondly, the father may have sent the boys as innocent agents to receive the sheep from the actual thief, in which case the father would have been guilty of receiving as a principal, the boys being, as it were, mere'y the long arms with which he took the sheep. Thirdly, he may have sent the boys for the same purpose as guilty agents, in which case, although the boys would be the principals in the felony (of receiving), yet the father would be an accessory before the fact, and might be convicted as a principal." Blackburn, J., "When it has been shown that property has been stolen, and has been found recently after its loss in the possession of the prisoner, he is called upon to account for having it, and, on his failing to do so, the jury may very well infer that his possession was dishonest, and that he was either the thief or the receiver, according to the circumstances. If he had been seen near the place where the property was kept before it was stolen, they may fairly infer that he was the thief. If other circumstances show that it is more probable that he was not the thief, the presumption would be that he was the receiver. The jury should not convict the prisoner of receiving unless they are satisfied that he is not the actual thief."(pp) A clearer case than this there never was the sheep were proved to have been in the possession of the son on the road, and the prisoner received them at the inn, and there was abundant evidence of guilty knowledge, and it was perfectly immaterial whether the prisoner had previously stolen them; for a man may be a thief and a receiver as well. There was also evidence that he either stole, or was an accessory before the fact to the stealing, for the letter appointing the meeting with the cattle dealer proves the previous intention, and supports one or the other of these views. As some articles pass from hand to hand much more readily than others, the (pp) Reg. v. Langmead, L. & C. 427. nature of the articles ought to be taken into consideration by the jury in determining whether the possession is so recent as to lead to the conclusion that the prisoner stole them. Upon an indictment for stealing two ends of woollen cloth, which were about twenty yards each in length; it appeared that the cloth was missed on the 23d of January, when it was in an unfinished state, and that part of it was left on the 21st of March by the prisoner at the house of one Porter, and that on the 30th of the same month, the prisoner sent the residue to be shorn. It was submitted that the length of time since the loss was so great that no presumption of guilt was raised against the prisoner by the possession of it. Patteson, J., "I think the length of time is to *be considered with reference to the nature of the articles which *339] are stolen. If they are such as pass from hand to hand readily, two months would be a long time, but here that is not so: it is a question for the jury."(p) The observation in the note to the last edition (q) has been confirmed by the following case. A knife, candlestick, watch, eyeglass and muffineer were burglariously stolen on the 27th of March, 1843, and all found in the prisoner's house on the 18th March, 1844, when he stated that he had had some of them in his possession more than a year. Tindal, C. J., told the jury that "If there had been nothing found but the knife, as that might change hands frequently, it would be too strong to infer that the prisoner must have been the thief; a small thing that would change hands very easily would be too little after so long a time: but then again it cannot be concealed that if, instead of one, there are several articles that are not likely to have changed from hand to hand, and then to have come together into the custody of the same person, that takes off from the effect that would be produced by the lapse of time."(r) Where on an indictment for stealing two post-letters, containing a bank-note for £500 and a Crystal Palace dividend warrant, it appeared that the prisoner was a letter-sorter and letter-carrier in the London Post Office, and that he had been employed as a sorter on the 17th January, 1861, in sorting letters for the East Central District, and a bank-note for £500 had been sent, with the warrant specified in the indictment, from Huddersfield to a firm in the East Central Division, in a letter which ought to have arrived on the 17th in London, but the letter was never delivered. In June, 1862, whilst he was still a sorter of letters, the prisoner was apprehended on another charge of abstracting other notes from letters, and asked if he had any other notes at home, and he replied he had one for £500, cut in halves, in a cash-box at his residence; and in that box the note was found, and on its being produced, the prisoner volunteered a statement that he had picked it up on Finsbury Pavement, in a pocket-book, ten months before, and in his defence he repeated that statement, and added that he had kept it all this time in expectation of seeing a reward offered for it. He admitted his guilt as to the other notes, but declared his innocence as to this note. Bramwell, B., told the jury that "the possession of stolen property shortly after it has been stolen is strong evidence, in the absence of explanation, against the person charged; but here that is not the case; for the note was lost many months before, and although, no doubt, the prisoner had had the note for months in his possession, yet it must be remembered that he volunteered the statement that he had found it in a pocket-book at the spot mentioned. *You may have a shrewd suspicion as to how he became possessed of it, but suspicion is not sufficient to convict. If you only entertain a suspicion, acquit the prisoner."(s) *340] (p) Rex v. Partridge, 7 C. & P. 551 (32 E. C. L. R.). It may frequently be very important to consider the number of articles stolen, and the number found on the prisoner, as it should seem that in proportion as the number found is large is the probability increased that he was the thief. C. S. G. (q) Supra, note (p). (r) Reg. v. Dovey, Worcester Sum. A. 1844, MSS., C. S. G. Suppose a man were robbed of fifty shillings, and the same fifty shillings were at any time afterwards found in the possession of any other person, is not the probability exceedingly strong that they had never been separated, but had been taken by that person? And so in every case where sundry articles, stolen at the same time, are found in the possession of any person, the number of the articles and their character ought to be taken into consideration, as well as the time that may have elapsed since they were stolen. (s) Reg. v. Smith, 3 F. & F. 123. The note had been lost seventeen months; the pri |