Thet II Themistius verity, but rather strongly confesses the charge. It is likewise true, that by the merciful extensions of the benefit of clergy by our modern statute-law, a person who commits a simple larceny to the value of thirteen pence or thirteen hundred pounds, though guilty of a capital offence, shall be excused the pains of death; but this is only for the first offence. And in many cases of simple larceny the benefit of clergy is taken away by statute: as from horse-stealing in the principals and accessories both before and after the fact; theft by great and notorious thieves in Northumberland and Cumberland; taking woollen cloth from off the tenters, or linens, fullians, calicoes, or cotton goods, from the place of manufacture (which extends, in the last case, to aiders, assistants, procurers, buyers, and receivers); feloniously driving away, or otherwise stealing one or more sheep or other cattle specified in the acts, or killing them with intent to steal the whole or any part of the carcass, or aiding or assisting therein; thefts on navigable rivers above the value of forty shillings, or being present, aiding and assisting thereto; plundering vessels in distress, or that have suffered shipwreck; stealing letters sent by the post; and also stealing deer, hares, and conies, under the peculiar circumstances mentioned in the Walham black act. Which additional severity is owing to the great malice and mischief of the theft in some of these instances; and others, to the difficulties men would otherwise lie under to preserve those goods, which are so easily carried off. Upon which last principle the Roman law punished more severely than other thieves the Abigei or stealers of cattle, and the Balnearii or such as stole the clothes of persons who were washing in the public baths; both which constitutions seem to be borrowed from the laws of Athens. And so, too, the ancient Goths punished with unrelenting severity thefts of cattle, or of corn that was reaped and left in the field: such kind of property (which no human industry can sufficiently guard) being esteemed under the peculiar custody of heaven.