FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY

1975 CarswellAlta 92
[1976] 1 W.W.R. 262, 31 C.R.N.S. 382, 27 C.C.C. (2d) 300
R. v. Dawood
Regina v. Dawood
Alberta Supreme Court [Appellate Division]
McDermid, Allen and Clement JJ.A.
Judgment: September 16, 1975
Docket: Calgary No. 9637
Copyright CARSWELL,
a Division of Thomson Canada Ltd. or its Licensors. All rights reserved.
Counsel: W. I. C. Wuttunee, for appellant.
P. S. Chrumka, for the Crown.
Subject: Criminal; Property
Criminal Law --- Offences against rights of property -- Theft and offences resembling
theft -- Theft by trick.
Criminal Law --- Offences against rights of property -- False pretences -- General offence
-- Included offences -- False pretences and theft.
Criminal law -- Theft -- Switching price tags and purchasing goods at lower price
amounting to false pretences -- Authority of cashier to complete contract by accepting
lower offer -- Intention of store to pass property.
The accused while shopping removed a blouse from a two-piece outfit and placed it on a
separate hanger. The price tag of $9.66 was removed from the blouse. The accused then
placed a single jumper on the hanger holding the blouse. The single jumper had a price
tag of $5.77. The cashier accepted the sum of $5.77 for the purchase of the blouse and
jumper. The accused was convicted of theft.
On appeal, held (Clement J.A. dissenting), the conviction was quashed.
Per McDermid J.A.:
The accused could not be convicted of theft if the vendor of the goods consented to the
transfer of possession of the blouse and to the transfer of the property in the blouse. The
cashier had a general authority to accept the offer of $5.77 for the jumper and blouse
and when the cash was accepted a contract of sale was completed.
Per Clement J.A.:
A display of goods in a self-service department store with the price marked on each
article is a general offer by the store to sell the articles at the marked price, which offer
can be accepted in only one way, by payment to the cashier of the marked price. Failure
to pay the price as marked on the item by the store results in no valid contract of sale
and no passing of property. There was no honest mistake by the accused about the offer

of the store but rather she induced the cashier by deceit to give her possession and such
trickery results in a theft as opposed to a false pretence. The cashier had no authority to
give possession and a property interest in the goods other than on the basis of the offer
made by the store. Regina v. Hemingway, 22 C.R. 275, [1955] S.C.R. 712, 112 C.C.C.
321, 1 D.L.R. (2d) 34; Regina v. Russett, [1892] 2 Q.B. 312; Regina v. Vallillee (1974),
24 C.R.N.S. 319, 2 O.R. (2d) 409, 15 C.C.C. (2d) 409 (C.A.); Pharmaceutical Society of
Great Britain v. Boots Cash Chemists (Southern), [1953] 1 Q.B. 401, [1953] 1 All E.R.
482; Regina v. Prince (1868), 11 Cox C.C. 193; Regina v. Azzaro (1974), 26 C.R.N.S.
400 (Ont. C.A.); Rex v. Pear (1779), 1 Leach 213, 168 E.R. 208; Oppenheimer v. Fraser
and Wyatt, [1907] 2 K.B. 50; Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co., [1893] 1 Q.B. 256;
Regina v. Small (1837), 8 Car. & P. 46, 173 E.R. 392 considered.
McDermid J.A. (Allen J.A. concurring):
1
The appellant appeals from her conviction for theft. The evidence which was
accepted by the learned Provincial Judge was that the appellant went into the S. S.
Kresge Co. Ltd. store. There were children's jumpers and blouses on a display rack in the
store for sale; in some cases a jumper was combined with a blouse making a two-piece
outfit, and in other cases the jumpers were alone on a hanger. The appellant was
observed to take a blouse from a two-piece outfit and put it on a single hanger. She then
took a single jumper and put it on the hanger also. The single jumper had a price tag of
$5.77 on it. The two-piece outfit from which she had taken the blouse had a price tag of
$9.66 attached to the blouse, this being the price for both the blouse and jumper. The
appellant removed this price tag of $9.66 from the blouse. It would then appear that the
blouse and jumper which she had combined on the single hanger were to be sold at the
price of $5.77 which was the price on the ticket attached to the jumper. There was no
price tag attached to the blouse but on a ticket attached to it there was written in pen
and ink "two pieces" indicating that the price attached to the outfit was for both the
jumper and the blouse. The appellant then took the two-piece outfit to the checkout
counter and paid to the cashier the price of $5.77. There was no concealment of either
the blouse or the jumper and it is clear that the cashier thought that the sale price for
both the jumper and blouse according to the price tag attached to the jumper was $5.77.
The appellant in effect paid the price only of the jumper.
2
The evidence which I have related was given by a store detective who had the
appellant under observation at all times. The appellant when she left the store was
stopped by the detective. The evidence of the detective was accepted by the Provincial
Judge, and there is no merit to the contention of defence counsel that he was in error in
so doing.
3
Second, defence counsel contended that if an offence was committed it was that of
false pretences and not theft.
4
In Regina v. Hemingway, 22 C.R. 275, [1955] S.C.R. 712 at 724, 112 C.C.C. 321, 1
D.L.R. (2d) 34, Kellock J., giving the judgment of himself and Locke J., said:
... the respondent could not have been convicted of theft as the vendor of the goods was
consenting not only to the transfer of possession but to the transfer of the property in the
goods upon the terms of the written contract ...
If the transaction under which the defrauder obtains possession of the goods does not
provide for the passing of the property either immediately or in the future, 'part of the
transaction is incomplete', to use the language of Lord Coleridge above [Regina v.
Russett]. A wrongful conversion in such circumstances means only one thing, namely,
theft. If, however, the transaction is 'complete' in the sense that the owner consents to
the passing of the property in compliance with a term of the contract to that effect, there

can be no theft. In so far, therefore, as the question in issue in the case at bar depends
upon a choice as between theft and obtaining the goods by false pretences, the only
possible offence of which the respondent could have been convicted was the latter.
5
This distinction between theft and false pretences is in keeping with the former
English law. In 10 Hals. (3d) 819, para. 1584, it is stated:
If a person obtains the property of another by fraud in such circumstances that the
ownership of the property passes to that person with the consent of the owner, this does
not constitute larceny, and at common law it does not constitute a criminal offence at all,
unless it amounts to either a cheat or a forgery.
6
In Regina v. Russett, [1892] 2 Q.B. 312, A. L. Smith J. said in commenting on the
difference between the offence of larceny by trick and that of obtaining money from false
pretences [p. 316]:
The difference between the two offences is this: if possession only of money or goods is
given, and the property is not intended to pass, that may be larceny by a trick; the
reason being that there is a taking of the chattel by the thief against the will of the
owner; but if possession is given and it is intended by the owner that the property shall
also pass, that is not larceny by a trick, but may be false pretences, because in that case
there is not taking, but a handing over of the chattel by the owner.
7
In Canada the distinction was recently discussed in Regina v. Vallillee (1974), 24
C.R.N.S. 319, 2 O.R. (2d) 409, 15 C.C.C. (2d) 409, by the Ontario Court of Appeal: see
also [the C.C.C.] editorial note to Regina v. Broddy , 23 C.R. 276, [1956] O.W.N. 317,
114 C.C.C. 347 (C.A.).
8
Once it is accepted that the appellant could not have been convicted of theft if the
vendor of the goods consented not only to the transfer of possession of the blouse but to
the transfer of the property in the blouse also, it becomes necessary to resort to the civil
law to decide whether there was any transfer of property.
9
In Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v. Boots Cash Chemists (Southern),
[1953] 1 Q.B. 401, [1953] 1 All E.R. 482, Somervell L.J. said at p. 406:
I agree with what the Lord Chief Justice has said, and with the reasons which he has
given for his conclusion, that in the case of an ordinary shop, although goods are
displayed and it is intended that customers should go and choose what they want, the
contract is not completed until, the customer having indicated the articles which he
needs, the shopkeeper, or someone on his behalf, accepts that offer. Then the contract is
completed.
10
Birkett L.J. and Romer L.J. agreed in this conclusion. A similar conclusion was
arrived at in Regina v. Bermuda Holdings Ltd. (1969), 8 C.R.N.S. 328, 70 W.W.R. 754, 9
D.L.R. (3d) 595 (B.C.), by Wootton J. See also Fisher v. Bell, [1961] 1 Q.B. 394, [1960]
3 All E.R. 731; an article by J. Unger in 16 Mod. L.R. 369; and an article entitled "Some
Aspects of Offer and Acceptance" by Winfield (1939), 55 L.Q.R. 516.
11
In my opinion when the appellant took the jumper and blouse to the checkout
counter she was offering to purchase the same for the price of $5.77. She was
representing to the cashier that both articles had been displayed for sale at this price,
although she knew such was false. The cashier had authority to accept such offer which
she did by accepting the cash proffered. At that point a contract of sale had been made;
true, it was a voidable contract as having been induced by fraud. The cashier had a
general authority to accept such offer and to sell the goods on behalf of her employer. If

she did not have such authority then of course the appellant could be convicted of theft.
The distinction is drawn in Regina v. Prince (1868), 11 Cox C.C. 193, where Blackburn J.
at p. 197 says:
The courts held that where the owner intended to part with the property in the thing
alleged to have been stolen, that was not larceny; and also that where the servant or
agent had a general authority to part with his employer's property in the management of
the business, there the offence was not larceny if he intended to part with the property
wrongfully obtained. The case was different if the servant or agent had not authority to
part with the property. The difficulty is to decide whether a given case falls within the one
class or the other.
12
In Lacis v. Cashmarts, [1969] 2 Q.B. 400, [1969] 2 W.L.R. 329, the English Court
of Appeal dealt with a situation where a customer took goods worth 185.8s. to a cash
desk. He was charged only 85.8s. owing to an error. He knew the error had been made
but nevertheless departed with the goods. He was convicted of larceny but the conviction
was quashed as the Court held that the manager of the store had authority and had
intended to pass the property in all of the goods. There it was the manager of the store
but in my opinion the cashier had been placed in her position for the very purpose of
accepting the cash proffered by customers for the purchase price of goods. She has a
general authority in this respect and the property in the blouse passed. If, for instance,
the appellant had sold the blouse to a person who did not know about the fraud, I think
such a purchaser would obtain good title to the blouse as against S. S. Kresge Co. Ltd.
13
Accordingly I would allow the appeal and quash the conviction; the fine will be
returned.
Clement J.A. (dissenting):
14

The appellant, Maureen Dawood, was charged that she:

... did unlawfully steal clothing valued at less than $200.00, the property of S. S. Kresge
Co. Ltd., contrary to the Criminal Code.
15
For the appellant it is contended that the evidence accepted by the Provincial Judge
did not support this charge: that her acts amounted to obtaining the clothing by false
pretences, not by theft, and that her conviction on the theft charge should be set aside.
The evidence is relatively brief.
16
S. S. Kresge Co. Ltd. operates a department store which includes a self-service
department for children's clothing. Mrs. Dawood went into this department and looked
over a rack of children's clothing on hangers consisting of dresses, blouses, jumpers and
two-piece outfits of blouse and jumper. She took out and admired some, including a twopiece outfit. The price was $9.66 exhibited on a ticket pinned to the blouse, which stated
that the price was for a two-piece outfit. She also took out from the rack and looked at a
jumper, a one-piece outfit without a blouse that bore a price ticket of $5.77. Under
observation by a security officer of the company she was seen to remove the blouse from
the two-piece outfit, take the price ticket of $9.66 off and discard it and put the blouse on
another hanger. She then took the single jumper with its price tag of $5.77 and put it
"over top the blouse", to quote the security officer, who said that "She put the blouse
onto the hanger and the jumper onto the hanger". The point was not pursued further, but
I take this evidence to mean that the two garments were assembled on one hanger to
look like a two-piece outfit. While the evidence of Mrs. Dawood was not accepted by the
Provincial Judge, on her cross-examination it is clear that this is so and that she took it as
such to the checkout and paid $5.77 to the girl operating the cash register, being the
amount of the price tag on the single jumper. She was apprehended when she left the

building. The Crown contends that she bought the jumper for its marked price of $5.77
and stole the blouse which had been part of the two-piece outfit priced at $9.66.
17
For Mrs. Dawood, it was argued that the facts of the case disclosed an intention on
the part of the company to part with a proprietary interest in both the jumper and the
blouse; and reliance was placed principally on Regina v. Hemingway, 22 C.R. 275, [1955]
S.C.R. 712, 112 C.C.C. 321, 1 D.L.R. (2d) 34, to establish that in such circumstances the
case does not come within the definition of theft provided by s. 283 et seq. of the
Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-34, upon which the offence of theft in s. 294 [am. 1972,
c. 13, s. 23] is founded, but only within s. 319(1) which defines false pretence in relation
to the offence established by s. 320. It was asserted that offences under ss. 294 and 320
are mutually exclusive so that when the facts establish an offence under one, it is not
possible in law to find that those facts could also exhibit an offence under the other. The
Crown disputes this proposition, relying in the main on Regina v. Vallillee (1974), 24
C.R.N.S. 319, 2 O.R. (2d) 409, 15 C.C.C. (2d) 409 (C.A.), and Regina v. Azzaro (1974),
26 C.R.N.S. 400 (Ont. C.A.). Both of those cases are concerned with the relationship
between the offence of false pretence under s. 320 and the offence of deceit under s.
338(1).
18
In Hemingway, supra, the accused was convicted of obtaining goods by false
pretences through the medium of a conditional sales agreement. The defence contended
that as the property in the goods had not wholly passed to the accused under such a
contract, he could not be found guilty of that offence but only of theft. The ratio of the
judgments was that under the conditional sales agreement the accused had obtained a
property interest sufficient to support the conviction. They recognized that the distinction
between theft (i.e., larceny) and false pretences must be made when the facts require it,
and that the offences are mutually exclusive. The main distinction is that when it is only
possession that is taken without the consent of the owner it is theft under s. 294;
whereas when the owner has been induced by a false pretence to transfer a proprietary
interest it is an offence under s. 320. At times difficulty has arisen in particular
circumstances in drawing the distinction by reason of the concept of larceny by a trick
which had its origin in Rex v. Pear (1779), 1 Leach 212, 168 E.R. 208.
19
In Vallillee, supra, it was held that offences under ss. 320 and 338(1) are not
necessarily mutually exclusive. In the course of his valuable judgment Martin J.A.
referred to the doctrine of larceny by a trick at pp. 410-11 [C.C.C.]:
The rule that in order to constitute the offence of obtaining property by false pretences
the owner must have been induced by the false pretence to transfer ownership, as
distinct from possession, of the thing which is the subject-matter of the charge is closely
linked historically with technical doctrines relating to the offence of larceny and especially
with the judicial development of that form of larceny known as larceny by a trick. A
trespassory taking was necessary to constitute the offence of larceny at common law. If
the owner voluntarily parted with possession of property there could be no larceny.
However, in Rex v. Pear [supra] it was held that if the owner was induced by fraud to
part with a chattel to one who, from the beginning, intended to misappropriate it, the
fraud vitiated the owner's apparent consent to the transfer of possession of the chattel.
In that case the accused had hired a horse under pretence of taking a journey but
immediately sold the horse, having had the intention from the very beginning. He was
held to have been properly convicted of larceny. The doctrine of the Pear's case did not
apply however, if the owner was induced by the fraud to part with the property in the
chattel and not merely with possession of it. If title passed to the person perpetrating the
fraud, his subsequent dealings with it could not constitute larceny and the offence was
that of obtaining property by false pretences.

The fraud which would vitiate the apparent consent of the owner to the transfer of
possession was not confined to fraud of the character which, in a civil case, would
prevent any contract between the parties from coming into existence, as opposed to
giving rise to a contract which was voidable at the option of the person upon whom the
fraud was perpetrated.
The doctrine of the Pear's case was illogical in that while the fraud vitiated the consent of
an owner to the delivery of possession of a chattel, it did not vitiate his consent to the
passing of the property in the chattel, where that was his intention, unless, of course, it
was of a kind which prevented any contract at all from coming into existence.
20
In Oppenheimer v. Frazer and Wyatt, [1907] 2 K.B. 50, Kennedy L.J. had this to
say of it at p. 77:
The expression 'larceny by a trick' is not really a legal expression indicating a distinct kind
of larceny. It is merely a convenient, or perhaps it may be said, having regard to the
questions which have been raised in this case, an inconvenient, mode of describing
certain cases of larceny in which the goods have neither been taken by force nor
clandestinely without the knowledge of the owner. The cases so described are none the
less cases of stealing.
21
The import of this passage is reflected in s. 283(3) of the Criminal Code. It is
consonant with the earlier explanation by Lord Coleridge C.J. in Regina v. Russett, [1892]
2 Q.B. 312 at 314:
... if the possession of the money or goods said to have been stolen has been parted
with, but the owner did not intend to part with the property in them, so that part of the
transaction is incomplete, and the parting with the possession has been obtained by fraud
-- that is larceny. This seems to me not only good law, but good sense, and this principle
underlies all the cases.
22
This concept must be examined in relation to the defence raised by the appellant.
In doing so I will put aside cases which arose out of an original bailment, and the
criticisms they have provoked, as no question of bailment arises here. There are further
principles which must be considered in relation to the part played by the cashier and in
respect of offer and acceptance. I will first turn to a consideration of the facts.
23
The occurrence took place in a modern setting -- a self-serve department store.
Such stores are but one example of a proliferating trend in retail commerce which now is
an important part of the daily shopping scene in cities in Canada and elsewhere. Other
examples are supermarkets for foods or drugs or, more recently, service stations for the
retail sale of gasoline. They have normally one feature in common. There are no clerks to
wait on a customer. Goods (other than gasoline) are displayed on shelves or racks and on
each is affixed by appropriate means the price of the article. The price must be taken as
a decision of management on the amount that is to be paid for the article by a customer.
The customer has every opportunity to consider the article and its price. If she wishes to
buy the article, she must take it to the cashier and pay the marked price. It is common
knowledge and experience that there is no other way intended or provided for the
completion of a purchase in the normal course of a self-serve business. The cashier is
there to receive the price and there is no suggestion in the evidence that her duties go
beyond ascertainment of the price and receiving payment of it. There was no holding out
of any greater authority on her part, and her apparent position in the whole transaction
warrants no inference that she had the authority of a shopkeeper -- which in such stores
one would expect to be the store manager. The customer does not go to the checkout
counter and offer to buy the goods; she takes them there and puts her money down as
did Mrs. Dawood. The cashier does not offer to sell the goods; she accepts the money,

bags the goods and passes them on for the customer to take possession as Mrs. Dawood
did here. These are the realities of the operation of the self-service department. They are
described in the following words by Mrs. Dawood after she had manipulated the garments
and the price tickets:
I then went up to the cash desk, and I went up to the cash register and paid for them.
24
Mrs. Dawood obtained by deceit of the cashier possession of the blouse for the
purpose of carrying it away. It is upon these realities that the legal issue must be
determined as a matter of some importance to the present-day administration of criminal
law, having regard to the volume of business done by such stores and the frequency of
shoplifting charges before the courts.
25
I have no doubt that in the circumstances above described a display of goods in a
self-service department, with the price marked on each article, is a general offer by the
store to its customers to sell those articles at the marked price. I am further clearly of
the opinion that it is a term of such offer inevitably implied by the circumstances that the
offer could be accepted in only one way, namely, the article to be carried to the cashier
and payment made to her there of the marked price.
26
I have come to the above conclusion with all due consideration and respect for the
views expressed by Lord Goddard C.J. in Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v. Boots
Cash Chemists (Southern), [1952] 2 Q.B. 795, [1952] 2 All E.R. 456, affirmed [1953] 1
Q.B. 401, [1953] 1 All E.R. 482, and those of Lord Parker C.J. in Fisher v. Bell, [1961] 1
Q.B. 394, [1960] 3 All E.R. 731 , insofar as his expressions might be thought applicable
in some measure to the present case. In the first place, I differ from the observations
made by Lord Goddard C.J. at p. 801:
I think that it is a well-established principle that the mere exposure of goods for sale by a
shopkeeper indicates to the public that he is willing to treat but does not amount to an
offer to sell. I do not think I ought to hold that that principle is completely reversed
merely because there is a self-service scheme, such as this, in operation. In my opinion it
comes to no more than that the customer is informed that he may himself pick up an
article and bring it to the shopkeeper with a view to buying it, and if, but only if, the
shopkeeper then expresses his willingness to sell, the contract for sale is completed. In
fact, the offer is an offer to buy, and there is no offer to sell; the customer brings the
goods to the shop-keeper to see whether he will sell or not.
27
I cannot accept that as correctly stating the situation here. There was here no
shopkeeper, that is to say no person with the requisite authority stationed in the
department to offer to sell goods to a customer, and this is a factor that must be taken
into account in categorizing the effect of the display of goods with the price attached. If
the situation were to be held to be only an offer to treat, then no sale could be concluded
until the customer had dealt with the shopkeeper who would, as I have suggested,
presumably be the store manager. This runs contrary to the intended course of business
and to common experience of the actual course of business in a self-service store.
28
Turning first to the question whether any property passed to Mrs. Dawood there is,
as I have noted, no way indicated nor can any way be plausibly conjectured that the offer
made by the company could be accepted in any manner save by carrying the article to
the cashier and paying the purchase price. That is the particular mode of acceptance
implied by the circumstances and no other mode is available: Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke
Ball Co., [1893] 1 Q.B. 256. It is trite law to say that an acceptance must correspond
with the terms of the offer, and that if it does not there is no agreement and there can be
no contract: Chitty on Contracts, 22nd ed., para. 64. It is only in a corresponding
acceptance of the very offer made by the company that there can be found an intention

by the company at the moment of sale that property in the goods should pass to a
purported customer. Mrs. Dawood knew exactly what the offers were: she discarded one
price ticket exhibiting the salient term of one offer and made use of the other price ticket
in a way calculated to deceive the cashier. That the cashier was deceived is not relevant
on this issue and cannot affect the real offers made by the company nor raise any
implications that it intended to pass title other than on the terms offered. These were, as
to the jumper to sell it on payment to the cashier of $5.77 and as to the blouse to sell it
together with the jumper forming part of the two-piece outfit on payment to the cashier
of $9.66. No false pretence operating on the cashier could have an effect on the intention
of the company to pass title as she did not have the authority that would be held by a
shopkeeper such as was spoken of by Lord Goddard C.J. Until the offers were accepted in
the manner indicated by payment of the prices exhibited to Mrs. Dawood on the price
tickets, there was no contract of sale and no passing of property. The words of Pollock B.
in Regina v. Russett, supra, at p. 315 can be applied:
This was not a case of a payment made on an honest contract for the sale of goods,
which eventually may, from some cause, not be delivered, or a contract for sale of a
chattel such as in Rex v. Harvey (1787), 1 Leach 467, 168 E.R. 335; from the first the
prisoner had the studied intention of defrauding the prosecutor.
29
The customer is at liberty to return the goods to the shelf, and the management is
at liberty to change the price. Common experience and observation have shown how
often the latter has been done in the past year of inflation without creating litigious
problems. To me, to hold that what I have described amounted only to an offer to treat
not only is unrealistic in the commerce of self-serve stores, but is a labour to keep alive
doctrines that are obsolete and have no modern use except to maintain legal difficulties
in this branch of criminal law. This leads inexorably to the conclusion, as it seems to me,
that no proprietary interest in the blouse passed to Mrs. Dawood. The only offers made
were those I have described above. There was no offer to sell the jumper with the blouse
for $5.77 as Mrs. Dawood well knew.
30
This brings me to the question of possession in relation to the concept of larceny by
a trick, and on the facts of the present case I take as applicable the words of Blackburn J.
in Regina v. Prince (1868), 11 Cox C.C. 193, L.R. 1 C.C.R. 150 at 155:
However, as the law now stands, if the owner intended the property to pass, though he
would not so have intended had he known the real facts, that is sufficient to prevent the
offence of obtaining another's property from amounting to larceny; and where the
servant has an authority co-equal with his master's, and parts with his master's property,
such property cannot be said to be stolen, inasmuch as the servant intends to part with
the property in it. If, however, the servant's authority is limited, then he can only part
with the possession, and not with the property; if he is tricked out of the possession, the
offence so committed will be larceny.
31
It was an implied term of the offers that Mrs. Dawood could take the garments to
the cashier for the purpose of accepting the offers. Had she done so honestly she would
have had up to that point a limited possession arising out of a licence for that purpose
although possibly not "legal possession" discussed in Russell on Crime, 12th ed., vol. 2,
p. 920. However, she did not take them for an honest purpose. Beyond that, she induced
the cashier by deceit to bag the garments and let her take possession of them. By this
means there occurred the asportation which is an essential ingredient in larceny. In
instructing the jury in Regina v. Small (1837), 8 Car. & P. 46, 173 E.R. 392 at 393,
Serjeant Arabin, after consultation with Parke B. and Patteson J., told them:

If you think it was a preconcerted scheme to get possession of the property without
giving anything for it, and that the boy had limited authority only, then you will find the
prisoner guilty.
32

This is what the learned Provincial Judge did here, and I think he was right.

33

I would dismiss the appeal with costs.

END OF DOCUMENT