Case ID: dc_2/html/0251-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Court", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

United States v. Samuel Strong.
    If goods be delivered to a workman for a special purpose, and he afterwards take them away with intent to steal them, it is larceny.
    Indictment for stealing sundry copper bolts, the property of the United States.
    The prisoner was a workman in the navy yard and employed in driving such bolts. The bolts were delivered to him from the shop where they were cut. He offered to sell them, having first carried them home to his house.
    
      
      Mr. Ashton, for the defendant,
    contended that it was not larceny, unless the defendant took them with intent to steal them. No trespass was committed. There must be an unlawful taking. 1 Hawk. c. 33, $ 2.
    
      Mr. Swann, District Attorney for the United States, contra,
    
    cited 1 Hawk. c. 33, §§ 5 and 6. That if'the person to whom the possession of the goods has been delivered by the owner, takes away a part of them, wilh intent to steal it; as in the case of a carrier, or weaver, or miller, it is larceny; so if one has the bare charge, or the special use of goods, but not the possession of them, as the shepherd, butler, servant, and guest; for in these cases the offence may properly come under the word cepit.
    
   The Court

(Thruston, J., doubting,)

instructed the jury that if they should be satisfied by the evidence that the bolts were delivered to the prisoner for the special purpose of driving them into the vessel, and he afterwards took them away, with intent to steal them, it was larceny.