[148] Wilken, loc. cit. p. 109 (people of Bali). Digesta, xlvii. 17. 1. Lex Saxonum, 32, 34; Wilda, op. cit. p. 877; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 637; Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 646 (ancient Teutonic law).
A distinction is further made between ordinary theft and robbery. The robber is treated sometimes more severely,[149] sometimes more leniently than the thief, and is not infrequently regarded with admiration. Among the Wanyamwezi thieves are despised, but robbers are honoured, especially by the women, on account of their courage.[150] In Uganda robbery is not thought shameful, although it is rigorously punished.[151] In Sindh no disgrace is attached to larceny when the perpetrators are armed.[152] Among the Ossetes, “where open robbery has been committed outside a village, the court merely requires the stolen article or an equivalent to be restored; but in cases of secret theft, five times the value must be paid. Robbery and theft within the boundaries of a village are rated much higher. A proverb says, ‘What a man finds on the high-road is God’s gift’; and in fact highway robbery is hardly regarded as a crime.”[153] The Kazak Kirghiz go so far as to consider it almost dishonourable for a man never to have taken part in a baranta, or cattle-lifting exploit.[154] According to Bedouin notions, there is a clear distinction between “taking and stealing.” To steal is to abstract clandestinely, “whereas to take, in the sense of depriving another of his property, generally implies to take from him openly, by right of superior force.”[155] The Arabian robber, says Burckhardt, considers his profession honourable, and “the term haràmy (robber) is one of the most flattering titles that could be conferred on a youthful hero.”[156] In ancient Teutonic law theft and robbery were kept apart; the one was the secret, the other the open crime. In most law-books robbery was subject to a milder punishment than theft, and was undoubtedly regarded as far less dishonourable. Indeed, however illegal the mode of acquiring property may have been, publicity was looked upon as a palliation of the offence, if not as a species of justification, even though the injured party was a fellow-countryman.[157] This difference between theft and robbery seems still to have been felt in the thirteenth century, when Bracton had to argue that the robber is a thief.[158] But in later times robbery was regarded by the law of England as an aggravated kind of theft.[159]
[149] Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cclxviii. p. 283 (Chinese law). Digesta, xlviii. 19. 28. 10. Erskine, Principles of the Law of Scotland, p. 566. Post, Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz, ii. 455 sq.
[150] Reichardt, quoted by Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 281.
[151] Ashe, Two Kings of Uganda, p. 294.
[152] Burton, Sindh, p. 195.
[153] von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 411. Cf. Kovalewsky, Coutume contemporaine, p. 342.
[154] Vámbéry, Das Türkenvolk, p. 306. Cf. Georgi, op. cit. ii. 270 sq. (Kirghiz).
[155] Ayrton, in Wallin, Notes taken during a Journey through Part of Northern Arabia, p. 29, n. ‡ (in Jour. Roy. Geo. Soc. xx. 317, n. ‡).
[156] Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 90. Cf. Burton, Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah, ii. 101; Blunt, op. cit. ii. 204 sq.