State v. Langford

• Citation: 33 S.E. 370,55 S.C. 322
• Parties: STATE v. LANGFORD.
• Decision Date: 17 June 1899
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina

33 S.E. 370

55 S.C. 322

STATE v. LANGFORD.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

June 17, 1899

Appeal from general sessions circuit court of Newberry county George W. Gage, Judge.

George Langford was indicted for burglary with intent to steal. From an order quashing the indictment, the state appeals. Reversed.

Solicitor Lease, for the State.

Johnstone & Welch, for respondent.

JONES J.

In this case the state appeals from an order quashing an indictment containing two counts,--one charging burglary of a dog house within 200 yards of, and appurtenant to, the dwelling of Mary Nichols, with intent to steal, etc., the goods and chattels of Mary Nichols in the said dog house; the other count charging larceny of a dog of the value of $10, of the proper goods and chattels of Mary Nichols, then and there being found in the said dog house. In sustaining the demurrer to the indictment, the circuit court held (1) that larceny cannot be committed of a dog; (2) that the intent to steal goods and chattels, charged in the first count, necessarily implies the stealing of a dog, because from a dog house, and that the offense of burglary is therefore not charged; (3) that it is not compound larceny to steal from a dog house, as alleged in the second count.

1. The first and principal question presented is whether a dog is the subject of larceny. By the old common law, larceny could not be committed of a dog. The reasons assigned for this were the baseness of the nature of such creature; that it was kept for mere whim and pleasure; that, being unfit for food, it was of no intrinsic value; that the penalty for the felony of larceny was too severe to apply for the stealing of so contemptible a creature. By St. 10 Geo. III. c. 18 (George III. was fond of stag hunting), the taking and carrying away of a dog was made punishable, but not as larceny. Under the reasoning satisfactory at that day, it was larceny to steal a tame hawk, but not larceny to steal a tame dog, although it was larceny to steal the hide of a dead dog; yet by the common law dogs were held to be such property as would sustain an action of trover for their recovery. Civil remedies were permitted for injury to, or loss of, dogs, and they would go to the executors and administrators as property. The reason for the outlawry of dogs in favor of thieves can hardly be regarded as persuasive at this day and here, and such crude application of the principles of the common law must yield to common sense. The fitness of an animal for food is not the only test of its value to mankind. Its capacity for useful service in other ways is often the real test of value. Nor is the fact that an animal is kept for the whim and pleasure of its owner any sort of reason for excluding it from the law of larceny as a thing of no value, for amusement has its valuable uses for man. Neither is it just to say of the dog that its nature is so base as to render it unworthy of protection as absolute property, for Baron Cuvier says the dog is the "completest, the most singular, and the most useful conquest ever made by man." When we are told that the Greeks and Romans employed dogs in war, armed with spiked collars, and that Corinth was saved by war dogs, which attacked and checked the enemy until the sleeping garrison were aroused, we better understand Shakespeare's Antony when he said, "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." We should not let contempt for sheep-killing dogs and our dread of hydrophobia do injustice to the noble Newfoundland, that braves the water to rescue the drowning child; to the Esquimaux dog, the burden-bearer of the Arctic regions; to the sheep dog, that guards the shepherd's flocks, and makes sheep raising possible in some countries to the St. Bernard dog, trained to rescue travelers lost or buried in the snows of the Alps; to the swift and docile greyhound; to the package-carrying spaniel; to the sagacious setters and pointers, through whose eager aid tables are supplied with the game of the season; to the fleet fox hound whose music, when opening on the fleeing fox, is sweet to many ears; to the faithful watch dog, whose honest bark, as Byron says, bays "deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home"; to the rat-exterminating terrier; to the wakeful fice, which the burglar dreads more than he does the sleeping master; to even the pug, whose very...