Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/262

248 PEDERAIi BEPOEIER. �mon Word applied to almost any unlawful taking, without regard to exactness of use or accurate technical terminology. In Dunnell v. Fiske, 11 Metc, 551, Mr. Chief Justice Shaw says : �" The natural and most obvious import of the word ' steal ' is that of felo- nious taking of property, or larcenyj but it inay be qiialifled by the context." Page 554. �In Alexander y. State, 12 iex. 540, where the words of the statute were "steal or entice away a slave," it was held the word "steal". imported a simple lareeny, and "entice away" defined a separate offence, distinctly differing from the other. A similar statute was not so construed in South Carolina, but as creating a statutory of- fense differing from lareeny ; and this Texas case is, I believe, excep- tional. State v. Gossett, 9 Eich. (S. C.) Law, 428. In Spencer v. State, 20 Ala. 24, it appears that in the Penal Code of Alabama there were two sections, one of which, the twenty-fifth, enacted that if one should "fraudulently or feloniously steal" property in any other state or country, and bring it into that state, he might be convicted and punished "as if such lareeny" had been committed in Alabama. Another, the eighteenth section, enacted that any one who should "inveigle, steal, carry, or entice away" any slave, etc., should, on conviction, be punished, etc. The words "steal" and "lareeny" were held to be technically used in the twenty-fifth section, and required that the ingredients of lareeny should exist ; while in the eighteenth section the word "steal," with others used, embraced not only lareeny, but other offences different from that offence in some essential par- ticulars. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that the eighteenth section constituted a statutory offence embraciug not only lareeny, but other aets, essentially differing from those entering into that offence; because it is apparent from the case, and the others cited in the opinion, that is what the court meant, and not a plural- ity of offences, including lareeny. In Williams v. State, 15 Ala. 259, the word "steal" is said to import a lareeny, when technically used, but in this eighteenth section to be used as a synonym of "carry away;" for the act declares that the offence shall be complete with- out an intention to convert to use of the taker or some other person, which was the essential ingredient in lareeny. So, in Mwrray v. State, 18 Ala. 727, it was held that although the acts must, under the twenty-iifth section, constitute lareeny in Alabama, it was the bringing of the slave into the state that constituted the statutory offence. And see Ham v. State, 15 Ala. 188. Furthermore, it ap- pears from these cases that nnder these two sections a com^lon-law ��� �