HORSES. It shall be lawful for any per son, native or foreigner, at anytime, to ship, lade, and transport, by way of mer chandize, horses into any, arts beyond the seas, in amity with his majesty, paying for each horse, mare, or gelding, 5s. and no more. • No person convicted for feloniously stealing a horse, gelding, or mare, shall have the privilege of clergy. 1 Ed. VI. 12. And not only all accessaries before such felony done, but also all accessaries after such felony, shall be deprived and putfrom all benefit, of their clergy, as the principal, by statute heretofore made, is or ought to be.
If an horse be 'stolen out of the stable, or other curtilage of a dwelling'=house, in the night time, it falls under the denomi nation of burglary ; ' if in the day-time, it falls under the denomination of larceny from the house'; and in either case, there is a reward of 40/. for convieting an of fender, and the prosecutor is entitled to a certificate, which will exempt him from all parish and ward offices, in the parish and ward where the burglary, or larceny, is committed, and which may be once as signed over, and will give the same ex emptionto the assignee As to proprietor.
Great abuses having arisen, and many horses having been stolen, from the facili ty and safety of disposing of them to those who keep slaughter-houses for horses, some regulations and restrictions seemed necessary. It was no uncommon thing for horses of great va lue to be sold for the purpose of making food for dogs, the thief rather choosing to receive twenty shillings for a stolen horse, without fear or danger of detec tion, than venture to dispose of him pub ficly,though he might possibly have found a purchaser who would have given as many pounds for him. These considera tions induced the legislature to pass the act of 26 Geo. III. c. 71, for regulating these slaughter-houses.
Killing or maiming hpraes. Where any person shall, in the night-time, malicious ly, unlawfully, and wilfully, kill or destroy any horses, sheep, or other cattle, of any person, every such offence shall be ad judged felony, and the offender shall suf fer as in the ease of felony. 22 and 23 Car. H. c. 7.
Offenders may be transported for seven years, either at the assizes, or at the ses sions, by three justices of the peace ; one to be of the quorum.
By the 9 Geo. I. c. 22. commonly called the black act, it is enacted, that if any person shall unlawfully and maliciously kill, maim, or wound, any cattle, every person so offending, being thereof law fully convicted in any county of Eng land, shall he adjudged guilty of felony, and shall suffer death, as in cases of felo ny, without benefit of clergy. But not to
work corruption of blood, loss of dower, nor forfeiture of lands or goods.
Prosecution upon this statute shall, or may, be commenced within three years from the time ofthe offence committed, but not after.' ' If a horse, or other goods, be delivered to an innkeeper, or his servants, he is bound to keep them safely, and restore them when his guest leaves the house. If a horse be delivered to an agisting firmer, for the purpose of depasturing in his meadows, he is answerable for the loss of the horse, if it be occasioned by the ordinary neglect of himself or his ser vants. If a man ride to an inn, where his horse has eat, the host may detain the horse till he be satisfied for the eating, and without making any demand. But a horse committed to an inn-keeper can only be detained for his own meat, and not for that of his guest, or any other horse; for the chattels, in such case, are only in the custody of the law for the debt which arises from the thing itself, and not . for any other debt due from the same party. By the custom of London and Exeter, if a man commit a horse to an inn-keeper, if he eat out his price, the inn keeper may take him as his own, upon the reasonable appraisement of four of his neighbours ; which was it seems a cus tom, arising from the abundance of traffic with strangers, that could not be known so as to be charged with an action. But it bath been holden, though an inn-keep er in London may, after long keeping, have the horse appraised and sell him, yet, has in such case had him appraised, he cannot justify the taking him to himself at the price he was ap praised at. And this cannot be .done at any other place by the common law, un less there is some special custom.
Housz, in naval affairs, a rope reaching from the middle of a yard to its extremi ties, and depending about two three feet under the yard, for the sailors to tread on while they are loosings, reefing, or furling the sails, rigging out the stud ding sail-booms, &c. The same word is used for a thiCk rope extending in a per pendicular direction near the fore or aft side of a mast, for the purpose of hoisting some yard or extending a sail upon it ; when before the thast, it is used for the square sail, whose yard is attached to the horse by means of a 'traveller which slides up and down When it is abaft the mast, it is intended for the try-sail of a snow, but it is seldom used in this posi tion, except in sloops of war that occasion ally assume the appearance. of snows to deceive the enemy.
Boast leech. See Innen°.