misdemeanour, as in obtaining goods by false pretences. Recent possession of stolen property may, according to circumstances, support the presumption that the prisoner is a thief or that he is a receiver. The Prevention of Crime Act, 1871, made important changes in the law of evidence in charges of receiving. It allows, under proper safeguards, evidence to be given in the course of the trial of the finding of other stolen property in the possession of the accused, and of a previous conviction for any offence involv- ing fraud and dishonesty. (2) Compounding theft, or theftbole (redemptio furti), that is, taking back stolen goods or receiving compensation on condition of not prosecuting, is a misdemeanour at common law. It need not necessarily be committed by the owner of the goods. Under the Larceny Act it is a felony punish- able by seven years' penal servitude to take money or reward corruptly for helping to recover stolen goods without using all due diligence to bring the offender to trial. By the same act, to advertise or print or publish any advertisement offering a reward for the return of stolen goods, and using any words "purporting that no questions will be asked, &c, renders the offender liable to a penalty of £50. This penalty must, by the Larceny (Adver- tisements) Act 1870, be sued for within six months, and the assent of the attorney-general is necessary. Various acts provide for the liabilities of pawnbrokers, publicans, marine-store dealers, and others into whose possession stolen goods come. Search for stolen goods can only be undertaken by a police officer under the protection of a search warrant. The law as to stolen goods, as far as it affects the civil rights and liabilities of the owner and third parties, is shortly as follows. As a general rule a purchaser takes goods subject to any infirmities of title. The property in money, bank-notes, and negotiable instruments passes by delivery, and a person taking any of these bona fide and for value is entitled to retain it as against a former owner from whom it may have been stolen. In the case of other goods, a bona fide purchaser of stolen goods in market overt (see Sale of Goods) obtains a good title (except as against the Crown), provided that the thief has not been convicted. After conviction of the thief the property revests in the owner, and the court before which the thief was convicted may order restitution, except in the cases specially mentioned in the Larceny Act, i.e. the bona fide discharge or transfer of a security for value without notice and the fraudulent dealing by a trustee, banker, &c, with goods and documents of title to goods entrusted to him. After conviction of the thief the goods must be recovered from the person in whose hands they are at the time of the conviction, for any sales and resales, if the first sale was in market overt, are good until conviction of the thief. The protection given by market overt is unknown in Scotland. If the goods were obtained by false pretences and not by larceny, the question then is whether the property in the goods has passed or not, and the answer to this question depends upon the nature of the false pretences employed. If the vendee obtains possession of goods with the intention by the vendor to transfer both the property and the possession, the property vests in the vendee until the vendor has done some act to dis- affirm the transaction. But if there was never any such inten- tion—if, for instance, the vendor delivers the goods to A.B. under the belief that he is CD.—the property does not vest in the transferee, and the owner may recover the goods even from a bona fide purchaser.
In the United States the law as to stolen goods is regulated by statute in the various states, but the broad principles are practically in accordance with English law. The doctrine of market overt is not, however, acknowledged by any state. The purchaser from a thief gets no title as against the owner. One who buys goods from a factor who procured them by larceny is not protected by the Factors Act in New York (Soltau v. Gerdau, 119 N.Y. 380). To the same effect (Gentry v. Singleton (1904), 128 Fed. R. 670) is a purchase of cattle from a thief. The U.S. Supreme Court held, in an action of detinue to recover five negro slaves, that the English rule as to sale in market overt did not apply in the United States {Ventress v. Smith, 10 Peters 175). In Pennsylvania there is no market overt and a purchaser of personal property cannot get a good title from one without title by paying for it (1907, Heisley v. Economy Tool Co. 33, Pa. Super. Ct. 218). So in Maine {Combs v. Gorden, 59 Me. in). In Massachusetts a sale of butter in the open market by one who had feloniously acquired possession of it did not transfer the property (Dame v. Baldwin, 8 Mass. 518). So held also in New York where horses stolen from there were sold in Canada, though a purchaser there is entitled to be reimbursed before delivering to the owner (Edgerly v. Bush, 81 N.Y. 199).
See also False Pretences; Larceny.
STOLICZKA, FERDINAND (1838-1874), Austrian palaeonto-
logist, was born at Hochwald, in Moravia, in May 1838. He was
educated at Prague and at the university of Vienna where he
graduated Ph.D. He was encouraged to work at geology and
palaeontology by Professor E. Suess and Dr M. Hoernes; and
as early as 1859 he communicated to the Vienna Academy a
description of some freshwater mollusca from the Cretaceous
rocks of the north-eastern Alps. In 1861 he joined the Austrian
Geological Survey, and in the following year he was appointed
palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of India. In Calcutta
the description of the Cretaceous fossils of Southern India was
placed in his hands, and the publication of this great work which
formed part of the Palaeontologia indica, was commenced with
the assistance of H. F. Blanford in 1863 and completed in 1873.
During the last ten years of his life he published geological
memoirs on the western Himalayas and Tibet, and numerous
papers on all branches of Indian zoology, from mammals to
insects and corals. In 1873 he was selected as naturalist and
geologist to accompany a mission despatched by the Indian
government to Yarkund and Kashgar under Mr (afterwards Sir
Douglas) Forsyth. His health, which had been severely affected
by his previous field work in India, proved unequal to the strain,
and he died on the 19th of June 1874, at Shayok, in Ladak,
while " returning loaded with the spoils and notes of nearly a
year's research in one of the least-known parts of Central Asia."
Memoir (with bibliography) by V. Ball, appended to Scientific
Results of the second Yarkand Mission, 1886; Obituary by W. T.
Blanford, Nature, July 9, 1 874.
STOLP, or Stolpe, a town of Germany, in the Prussian
province of Pomerania, on the Stolpe, 10 m. from the Baltic Sea
and 64 m. W. of Danzig on the railway to Stargard, and with
branches to Stolpmiinde and Neustettin. Pop. (1905), 31,154.
The large church of St Mary, with a lofty tower, dating from the
14th century, the Renaissance castle of the 16th century, now
used as a prison, and one of the ancient town-gates restored in
1872 are memorials of the time when Stolp was a prosperous
member of the Hanseatic League. It has also the church of St
John, built in the 13th century, a new town hall, and a statue of
Bismarck. The manufacture of machinery, amber articles,
tobacco and cigars, and bricks, with some iron-founding,
linen-weaving, and salmon-fishing in the Stolpe, are the chief
industrial occupations of the inhabitants, who also carry on trade
in grain, cattle, spirits, timber, fish and geese. Stolpmiinde, a
fishing-village and summer resort, at the mouth of the river, is
the port of Stolp.
Stolp, mentioned in the 11th century, received town rights in 1273. From the 14th to the 16th century it was a member of the Hanseatic League. Until 1637, when it passed to Brandenburg, the town was generally in the possession of the dukes of Pomerania.
STOMACH (Gr. στόμαχος from στόμα, a mouth), the bag-like
digestive organ which in man is situated in the upper left part
of the abdomen. See, for anatomical details, Alimentary Canal. For the diseases of the stomach in general see Digestive Organs; and for special forms Gastritis, Gastric Ulcer,
Dyspepsia, &c; also Abdomen (Abdominal Surgery).
Cancer of the Stomach is a common disease. It occurs for the most part in persons at or after middle life, and in both sexes equally. Its favourite situation is the outlet (pyloric cancer), where a hard, fibrous growth forms a contracting ring of the scirrhous variety. But when cancer attacks the inlet of the stomach, the tumour is of the scaly epitheliomatous variety. It often begins in the tissues of the end of the gullet, spreading downwards to the stomach. Chronic gastric ulcer is not unfrequently the starting point of cancer.
