Section I. Burglary

AT COMMON LAW A CAPITAL OFFENCE

It seems that according to the ancient authors burglary consisted in breaking into houses, churches, or the walls or gates of a town, by night. Later, however, it came to be defined at common law as breaking and entering the dwelling-house of another in the night, with intent to commit some felony therein, whether such felony be actually committed or not.

It should be remembered that up to the early part of the nineteenth century the felony of burglary was capital. It was excluded from benefit of clergy in 1575 but in the latter part of the eighteenth century execution could be respited and transportation substituted at the discretion of the judge. But the Larceny Act of 1827 made burglary a capital offence without die alternative of transportation. This severity of punishment tended to lead persons to hesitate to initiate prosecutions in many cases, and in others to temper their evidence in favour of the prisoner. If the cases are examined in their historical sequence it will be observed that in the earlier ones the courts took a much stricter view of the necessity to observe all the technical distinctions in the definition of burglary than was done in the more modern cases after the penalties had been reduced.

UNDER THE LARCENY ACT, I916

The law relating to burglary is now consolidated by the Larceny Act, 1916,10 s. 25, which reads:

1. Every person who in the night

2. (1) breaks and enters the dwelling-house of another with intent to commit any felony therein; or

3. (2) breaks out of the dwelling-house of another, having

4. (a) entered the said dwelling-house with intent to commit any felony therein; or

5. (b) committed any felony in the said dwelling-house; shall be guilty of felony called burglary, and on conviction thereof liable to imprisonment for life.

THE PLACE

By the close of the medieval era it came to be settled that this must be a dwelling-house.