 The common law generally treated damage to another's chattels as a civil matter leading only to a right to damages in trespass or nuisance; in the 18th century, Blackstone stated: "The rights of personal property in possession are liable to two species of injuries: the amotion [carrying away] or deprivation of that possession; and the abuse or damage of the chattels, while the possession continues in the legal owner." Blackstone clearly labelled these as "Private Wrongs" in his commentaries, emphasising that property rights were enforced inter partes, and that the State was not necessarily one of the involved parties. In fact, the criminal law only intervened in the case of arson, defining it as "the malicious and wilful burning of the house or outhouses of another man". This protection extended to barns and even "stacks of corn". Arson traditionally attracted the death penalty, and had done so in Roman law.
