In the following year it was provided by the Act 30th of George the Second, cap. 24, _that it shall be lawful for any Pawnbroker, or any other dealer, their servants or agents, to whom any goods shall be offered to be pawned, exchanged, or sold, which shall be suspected to be stolen, to seize and detain the persons offering the same, for the purpose of being examined by a Justice; who is empowered, if he sees any grounds to apprehend that the goods have been illegally obtained, to commit the persons, offering the same, to prison for a period not exceeding six days; and if on further examination, the Justice shall be satisfied that the goods were stolen, he shall commit the offender to prison, to be dealt with according to Law; and although it may, under such circumstances, afterwards appear that the goods in question were fairly obtained, yet the parties who seized the supposed offender shall be indemnified_.--Sec. 7, 8.
It would have been useful if the principles of the first of these excellent acts had extended to every kind of goods and chattels, _horses_, _cattle_, _money_, and _Bank-notes_,[76] as well as to the metals therein described. Indeed it is to be lamented, that the System has not been to look at great features of abuse in _the gross_, so as to meet every existing evil at once. Thus another partial Statute was made, 2 George III. _c._ 28, extending the provisions of the 29th Geo. II. _c._ 30. to goods, stores, or materials taken from ships in the River Thames, by enacting, "_that all persons purchasing such goods, knowing them to be stolen, or receiving the same in a concealed or clandestine manner between sun-setting and sun-rising, shall be transported for fourteen years, although the principal felon be not convicted_:" but by the wording of this Act, it is doubtful if it applies to receiving goods stolen from vessels not afloat in the river.[77]
[Footnote 77: It was held in the trial of Moses Pike, at the Old Bailey, in May, 1784, that to steal from a Barge aground in Limehouse-Dock, was not within the meaning of the Act of 24th of George the Second, cap. 45, which makes it felony to steal from any vessel or craft upon a Navigable River, &c.]
The next Statute applicable to the Receivers of stolen goods, is the 10th of George III. cap. 48, by which it is enacted, "_that every person who shall buy or receive any jewels, gold, silver, plate or watches, knowing the same to be stolen, where such stealing was accompanied by a burglary or highway robbery, may be tried as well before as after the principal felon is convicted; and whether he be in, or out of custody; and if found guilty, shall be transported for fourteen years_."