SUPPLEMENTARY CONSIDERATIONS

Reparation. Chinese law allows reparation

to be made, and if the robber or thief of his own motion restores the plunder he has taken, he will be held absolved. If the offender does so in knowledge that the victim intends to lay an information, still the penalty will be mitigated two degrees; and even if the reparation be made after information has been laid, and a warrant issued for the offender's arrest, the sentence will be mitigated one degree (H. A. H. L. Supp. vol. VII. p. 37

Delivery up to justice).

and cf.

In

Violence in resisting pursuit or arrest. cases of robbery with violence, if a robber kills a pursuer rather than give up his plunder, and whether the person killed be he whose property has been taken or a neighbour of the latter, it is decapitation without more ado. But if the pursuer be merely wounded, it makes a difference

apparently whether he

was or was

not the

person whose property had been taken being decapitation subject to revision in the former case, and in the latter merely an aggravation of the penalty for the original offence. So in the case of Hu Ch'ao, who, running away, was caught in the court-yard of a neighbour's house by the alarmed occupants and thereon cut the fingers of a servant. In cases of ordinary robbery or theft, a neighbour who interferes is on a different footing. Furthermore, so far as concerns the mere aggravation of the penalty for the ordinary offence, mere threats by an offender in resisting the recovery of his plunder are sufficient (v. case of Sun Lan-t'ai H. A. H. L. vol. XIII. p. 35).

Violence by a robber in resisting arrest, if life is lost, is punishable by decapitation others concerned being also liable, but not capitally. Moreover, where the offenders are several, and in resisting arrest life is lost, the principal in the robbery is alone capitally liable

although the fatal blow was not dealt by him (H. A. H. L. vol. XIV. p. 33). In short,

violence by robbers in resisting arrest is more leniently viewed than violence preparatory to or during a robbery; and this although the violence. took place on the actual scene of the offence (H. A. H. L. vol. XIV. p. 34).

CHAPTER XII

OFFENCES AGAINST PROPERTY (CONTD.) EMBEZZLEMENT, ARSON ETC.

Careful distinction, say the Chinese law books, must be drawn between theft, and the cognate offences - embezzlement, misappropriation 費用受寄財物,cheating 誆騙,and swindling. This for the somewhat strange reason, that although all lead to a person's losing his property, the four last offences are more easily guarded against than the first. But although so careful a distinction is supposed to be made, the rule, it must be confessed, is one of theory rather than of practice,

BREACH OF TRUST

EMBEZZLEMENT

APPROPRIATION

The chief distinction between these offences and larceny appears to be as to the intention of the offender when he takes the property into his possession: in larceny, the criminal intent being at the time of so taking, in the other offences, the criminal intent not existing at the time, but arising subsequently (H. A. H. L. vol. XVII. p. 8).

As between private individuals, Chinese Law on the whole regards breach of trust, embezzlement, and kindred offences, in somewhat lenient fashion. If a person to whom the goods or money of another have been entrusted wastes or consumes the same without authority from the owner, he will be punished with a penalty not exceeding ninety blows and transportation for two years and a half. If such trustee fraudulently alleges the loss of the property or money confided to him, a penalty one degree less than that applying to simple theft will attach

of course upon the value of the

and based

property