ABSTRACT
When Peel proposed the consolidation and rationalisation ofthe criminal law to parliament in 1826 he announced that he would begin with laws relating to felony:
because I consider the crime of theft to constitute the most important class of crime. There are acts no doubt of much greater malignity, of a much more atrocious character than the simple act of robbery; but looking at the committals and convictions for crime, it will at once be seen, that those for theft so far exceed the committals and convictions for any other species of offence, that there can be no question of its paramount importance in the catalogue of offences against society.
