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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0531 and id is 1 raw text is: 1 LEACH 4W8. WILLIAM WALKER'S CASE 351
Lynn had been convicted of a misdemeanor on an indictment which charged, that
he, on such a day, had entered a certain burying-ground, and taken from a coffin
buried in the earth a dead body, for the purposes of dissection.
In Michaelmas Term 1789, it was moved in the Court of King's Bench in arrest of
the judgment, that this was an offence of ecclesiastical cognizance, and not indictable
in any [498] court of criminal jurisdiction at the common law. But by the Court,
the offence is cognizable in a criminal court, as highly indecent, and contra bonos
mores ; and the circumstance of its being for the purposes of dissection does not make
it a less indictable offence.
The defendant, on the probability of his having committed this crime merely
from ignorance, was only fined five marks.
CASE CCXXIX.
WILLIAM WALKER'S CASE.
(A Scotch Covenanter may be sworn in as a Juryman in a Court of Criminal Law,
by the ceremony of holding up his hand, without kissing the book.)
At the Old Bailey in December Session 1788, present Mr. Justice Wilson, and Mr.
Recorder, William Walker, one of the Second Middlesex Jury, being, as he stated, a
Member of the Kirk of Scotland, objected to be sworn by the usual ceremony of
kissing the book, but offered to take the oath, according to the ceremony of his own
religion, by holding up his hand.
The Court said, there was no objection to his being admitted to take the oath in
this form, and he was so sworn accordingly.(a)'
CASE CCXXX.
THE KING V. ISAAC COCKWAINE.
(Obtaining the goods of a tradesman under a false pretence of being sent for them
to shew a customer, is fraud and not felony.)
At the Old Bailey in December Session 1788, Isaac Cockwaine was indicted before
Mr. Justice Wilson, for feloniously stealing two men's hats, the property of Benjamin
Rankin.
The Jury found the prisoner Guilty, subject to the opinion of the Twelve Judges
on the following facts, which they found specially : That the prisoner, on the 7th
November 1788, went to the shop of the prosecutor, a hatter in Leadenhall-street,
with an intent unlawfully to obtain and [499] convert to his own use the goods
mentioned in the indictment; and told the said Mr. Rankin, that a Mr. Sansom who
lived in a neighbouring street, was going out of town early the next morning, and
wanted a new round hat, and desired that he, the said Mr. Rankin, would take some
hats of that kind to shew to Mr. Sansom ; that Mr. Rankin went accordingly to Mr.
Sansom's in London-street ; and while he was gone, the prisoner returned in about
three minutes to the shop of Mr. Rankin, and said to a servant-man of Mr. Rankin's,
who was in the shop when the prisoner first went there, ' Your master is at our house,
and he has sent me, and says you must give me the cocked hat and round hat that
are in the window' : that the servant-man accordingly, then and there, delivered to
the prisoner the said two hats : that the prisoner went away with the said two hats,
and unlawfully converted them to his own use; and that the said Mr. Rankin did
not in truth and in fact send him or any other person for the said hats.(a)2 But
(a)' Vide Mildrone's case, ante, page 412, case 190.
(a)2 The Judges, in considering the case of Rex v. Pares, adverted to the question
whether his case was at all affected by the statute 30 Geo. II. c. 24, and they were of
opinion that that statute applied to all cases where goods were obtained by a false
pretence of any kind, but that both the statutes of 33 Hen. VIII. c. 1, and 30 Geo. II.
c. 24, are confined to cases where credit was obtained in the name of a third person,
and do not extend to a case where a man on his own account gets goods with an
intention to steal them; that where an original intention to steal appears, the
statutes do not apply ; where no such intent appears, if the means mentioned in the
statutes are made use of, the Legislature had made the offender answerable criminally,
who before, by the common law of the land, was only answerable civilly. See 2 East,
P. C. 689, and the observations of Mr. Baron Eyre, ibid. in notis.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0531&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)