Oregon cowboys circa 1900 dramatizing the fate of a horse thief
Horse theft is the crime of stealing horses. A person engaged in stealing horses is known as a horse thief. Historically, punishments were often severe for horse theft, with several cultures pronouncing the sentence of death upon actual or presumed thieves. Several societies were formed in the United States to prevent horse theft and apprehend horse thieves. However, horse theft continues to occur throughout the world, as horses are stolen for their meat, for ransom, or in disputes between their owners and other persons. Horse theft today is comparable to automobile theft, a crime punishable by felony jail time.
Horse theft was a well-known crime in medieval and early modern times and was severely prosecuted in many areas. While many crimes were punished through ritualized shaming or banishment, horse theft often brought severe punishment, including branding, torture, exile and even death.[2] According to one 18th century treatise, the use of death as a punishment for horse theft stretches back as far as the first century AD, when the Germanic Chauci tribe would sentence horse thieves to death, while murderers would be sentenced to a fine. This practice derived from the wealth of the populace being in the form of livestock which ranged over large areas, meaning that the theft of animals could only be prevented through fear of the harsh punishment that would result.[3]
Horse theft was harshly punished in the French Bordeaux region in the 15th–18th centuries. Punishments ranged from whipping to a lifetime sentence of service on a galley ship, a severe punishment shared by perpetrators of incest, homicide and poisoning.[4]
In 19th-century Russia, the theft of livestock (including horses) made up approximately 16 percent of thefts of peasant property; however, there were no reported thefts of horses from estate property. The offense of stealing a horse was the most severely punished of any theft on Russian estates, due to the importance of horses in day-to-day living. Flogging was the usual punishment for horse thieves, combined with the shaving of heads and beards, and fines of up to three times the value of the horse if the animal had been sold.[5]
Since Henry VIII's reign, horse theft was considered a serious crime in England.[6] It was made a non-clergyable crime in 1597–1598 and 1601.[7] For the rural English county of Berkshire in the 18th century, horse theft was considered a major property crime, along with stealing from dwellings or warehouses, sheep theft, highway robbery and other major thefts.[8] In Essex in the 18th century, some assize judges decided to execute every horse thief convicted to deter the crime.[6] From around the 1750s until 1818, between 13% and 14% of persons convicted of horse theft in Home, Norfolk, and Western circuits were executed.[9] The punishment of death for stealing horses was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1832, upon the passage of a bill sponsored by William Ewart; the legislation, which passed over the strong objections of Peel in the Commons and Lord Wynford in the Lords, also abolished the death penalty in Britain for the theft of sheep and cattle, and for larceny in a dwelling house; the Parliament had abolished the death sentence for most larcenies in a separate bill the same year.[10] By the time of its abolition, actual executions for horse theft had been rare or nonexistent for 50 years.[11]
The term horse thief came into great popularity in the United States during the 19thcentury. During that time the Great Plains states, Texas, and other western states were sparsely populated and largely unpoliced. As farmers tilled the land and migrants headed west through the Great Plains, their horses became subject to theft. Since these farmers and migrants depended on their horses, horse thieves garnered a particularly pernicious reputation because they left their victims helpless or greatly handicapped by the loss of their horses. The victims needed their horses for transportation and farming. Such depredation led to the use of the term horse thief as an insult, one that conveys the impression of the person who perpetrated the insult as one lacking any shred of moral decency.[12]
In Pennsylvania, the "An Act to Increase the Punishments of Horse Stealing" law was passed in 1780 and repealed in 1860, which stated people guilty of such a crime should be branded. The law ran as follows; "the first offense [the convicted] shall stand in the pillory for one hour, and shall be publicly whipped on his, her or their [bare] backs with thirty-nine lashes, well laid on, and at the same time shall have his, her or their ears cut off and nailed to the pillory, and for the second offense shall be whipped and pilloried in like manner and be branded on the forehead in a plain and visible manner with the letters H. T."[13]
This punishment was referenced in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian as the character Toadvine is branded with the letters H. T. on his forehead. H stands for Horse, T for Thief and F for Felon; "On his forehead were burned the letters H T and lower and almost between the eyes the letter F and these markings were splayed and garish as if the iron had been left too long. When he turned to look at the kid the kid could see that he had no ears."[14]
In the United States, the Anti Horse Thief Association, first organized in 1854 in Clark County, Missouri, was an organization developed for the purposes of protecting property, especially horses and other livestock, from theft, and recovering such property if and when it was stolen. Originally conceived by farmers living in the area where Missouri, Illinois and Iowa intersect, it soon spread, with the first charter organization in Oklahoma Territory being created in 1894. By 1916 the associated numbered over 40,000 members in nine central and western US states, and a drop in horse thefts had been noted.
Bentonville Anti-horse Thief Society historical marker in Ohio
Between 1899 and 1909, members of the Oklahoma branch of the AHTA recovered $83,000 worth of livestock and saw the conviction of over 250 thieves.[15] A similar group, which operated mainly in Ohio, was the Bentonville Anti-Horse Thief Society. Men suspected of being thieves would be pursued by members of the organization, and often hanged without trial.[16]The Society in Dedham for Apprehending Horse Thieves was a third such organization that operated in the United States, this one in Dedham, Massachusetts. It is today "the oldest continually existing horse thief apprehending organization in the United States, and one of Dedham’s most venerable social organizations."[17] Most of these clubs became defunct or developed into social clubs with the decline of horse theft in the US.[18]
Present day
The trial of a horse thief chromolithograph in 1877Tree in Horse Thief Canyon, where a number of horse thieves were hanged taken in 1913
Horse theft is still relatively common, with an estimated 40,000 horses a year being taken from their lawful owners by strangers or opponents in civil or legal disputes. Stolen Horse International is one modern-day organization in the US that works to reconnect stolen horses with their owners.[19] Horses are sometimes stolen for their meat,[20] or sometimes for ransom.[21] Punishment for horse theft can still be severe, as one woman in Arkansas was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the 2011 theft of five horses and equestrian equipment; one of the horses was later found dead, while the others were recovered.[22] Horse thefts today can in some cases be solved through the use of microchips, which is required in the European Union on horses born after 2009 and also often seen in other countries.[20]
Stolen racehorses
Fanfreluche, a Canadian Thoroughred stolen in June 1977 and recovered in December
Ocean Bay, a Venezuelan racehorse stolen and killed in 2020, possibly for food, as Venezuela was in economic chaos
Shergar, stolen for ransom by the IRA on 8 February 1983, allegedly killed after injuring its leg
↑ Geo. C. Blakely, photographer, “Thirteen Snapshots of Life in the Untrammeled Bunch Grass County: Execution After the Verdict,” The Oregon Native Son, volume 2, page 520 (May 1900)
↑ Carolyn A. Conley, The Unwritten Law: Criminal Justice in Victorian Kent (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 45.
↑ Luckett, Matthew S (2014). Honor among Thieves: Horse Stealing, State-Building, and Culture in Lincoln County, Nebraska, 1860–1890 (Ph.D.). University of California Los Angeles.
Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word theft is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as larceny, robbery, embezzlement, extortion, blackmail, or receiving stolen property. In some jurisdictions, theft is considered to be synonymous with larceny, while in others, theft is defined more narrowly. Someone who carries out an act of theft may be described as a "thief".
Burglary, also called breaking and entering (B&E) and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of illegally entering a building or other areas without permission, typically with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, larceny, robbery, or murder, but most jurisdictions include others within the ambit of burglary. To commit burglary is to burgle, a term back-formed from the word burglar, or to burglarize.
Identity theft, identity piracy or identity infringement occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term identity theft was coined in 1964. Since that time, the definition of identity theft has been statutorily defined throughout both the U.K. and the U.S. as the theft of personally identifiable information. Identity theft deliberately uses someone else's identity as a method to gain financial advantages or obtain credit and other benefits, and perhaps to cause other person's disadvantages or loss. The person whose identity has been stolen may suffer adverse consequences, especially if they are falsely held responsible for the perpetrator's actions. Personally identifiable information generally includes a person's name, date of birth, social security number, driver's license number, bank account or credit card numbers, PINs, electronic signatures, fingerprints, passwords, or any other information that can be used to access a person's financial resources.
Shoplifting, shop theft, retail theft, or retail fraud is the theft of goods from a retail establishment during business hours, typically by concealing a store item on one's person, in pockets, under clothes or in a bag, and leaving the store without paying. With clothing, shoplifters may put on items from the store and leave the store wearing the clothes. The terms shoplifting and shoplifter are not usually defined in law. The crime of shoplifting generally falls under the legal classification of larceny. Shoplifting is distinct from burglary, robbery, or armed robbery. In the retail industry, the word shrinkage can be used to refer to merchandise lost by shoplifting, but the word also includes loss by other means, such as waste, uninsured damage to products and theft by store employees.
A bounty is a payment or reward of money to locate, capture or kill an outlaw or a wanted person. Two modern examples of bounties are the ones placed for the capture of Saddam Hussein and his sons by the United States government and Microsoft's bounty for computer virus creators. Those who make a living by pursuing bounties are known as bounty hunters.
Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde, was a London underworld figure notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled the "Thief-Taker General". He simultaneously ran a significant criminal empire, and used his crimefighting role to remove rivals and launder the proceeds of his own crimes.
A "thief in law" in the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet states, and their respective diasporas is a formal and special status of "criminal authority", a professional criminal who enjoys an elite position among other members within organized crime and correctional facility environments and who has informal authority over lower-status members.
A fence, also known as a receiver, mover, or moving man, is an individual who knowingly buys stolen goods in order to later resell them for profit. The fence acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may not be aware that the goods are stolen.
Human branding or stigmatizing is the process by which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention that the resulting scar makes it permanent. This is performed using a hot or very cold branding iron. It therefore uses the physical techniques of livestock branding on a human, either with consent as a form of body modification; or under coercion, as a punishment or to identify an enslaved, oppressed, or otherwise controlled person. It may also be practiced as a "rite of passage", e.g. within a tribe, or to signify membership of or acceptance into an organization.
Charles Hitchen, also mentioned as Charles Hitchin in other sources, was a "thief-taker" and under-marshal of the City of London in the early 18th century, also, famously tried for homosexual acts and sodomy offences. Alongside his former assistant and then a major rival Jonathan Wild, against whom he later published a pamphlet and contributed to his sentencing to death, Hitchen blackmailed and bribed people and establishments irrespective of their reputation, suspicious or respectable. Despite the disgrace of the people he earned through his abusive exercising of his power, he remained in power and continued fighting against violent crime, especially after the ending of the war of the Spanish Succession and until 1727.
The Anti Horse Thief Association was a vigilance committee, organized at Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1859 to provide protection against marauders thriving on border warfare. It resembled other vigilance societies in organization and methods, although it did not share some of the shadier tactics of other vigilance committees and members of the Regulators. It achieved great success in apprehending offenders over a wide area. Though it initially focused on horse theft, it diversified into other areas while still retaining the original name.
The Society in Dedham for Apprehending Horse Thieves is one of the "oldest continually existing horse thief apprehending organization in the United States, and one of Dedham's most venerable social organizations." Since its founding there have been more than 10,000 members including heads of state, Supreme Court justices, governors, popes, professors, generals, and other notables.
In English legal history, a thief-taker was a private individual hired to capture criminals. The widespread establishment of professional police in England did not occur until the 19th century. With the rising crime rate and newspapers to bring this to the attention of the public, thief-takers arose to partially fill the void in bringing criminals to justice. These were private individuals much like bounty hunters. However, thief-takers were usually hired by crime victims, while bounty hunters were paid by bail bondsmen to catch fugitives who skipped their court appearances and hence forfeited their bail. Both types also collected bounties offered by the authorities.
Stolen Horse International, Inc., also referred to as NetPosse or SHI, is an organization founded to assist horse owners with recovering horses lost during theft. Their website states their mission is to provide a comprehensive theft awareness program to all facets of the horse industry and offer educational opportunities for horse enthusiasts of all types and across all disciplines. The organization which started in 1997, has broaden its reach in the equine community to missing, lost and found, runaways and much more.
Theft from libraries of books, historical documents, maps and other materials from libraries is considered a significant problem. One study commissioned in the UK estimated the average loss rate of libraries to theft at 5.3%.
During the 20th century in the Soviet Union, Russian criminal and prison communities maintained a culture of using tattoos to indicate members' criminal career and ranking. Specifically among those imprisoned under the Gulag system of the Soviet era, the tattoos served to differentiate a criminal leader or thief in law from a political prisoner.
19 Court Street is an historic building in Dedham, Massachusetts that was originally built in 1801 as a two-story, Federal-style single-family home. It was soon thereafter converted into a tavern, and hosted John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and the Marquis de Lafayette. In the 2010s it was converted into apartments. It has more than 15,000 square feet of living space.
The Red Hook Society for the Apprehension and Detention of Horse Thieves is the oldest horse thief apprehension society in the United States.
George Henry "Taters" Chatham was a British thief and burglar. Born to a middle-class family, he aspired to become a professional footballer but despite a trial at Queen's Park Rangers, nothing came of it. Chatham turned to crime and was first convicted of theft in 1931. By the end of that decade he was burgling the houses of wealthy Londoners, carefully selecting his targets from society magazines. His calm-headedness led to his nickname from the Cockney rhyming slang for cold.
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