reprieve the offender before or after judgment, in order to the obtaining the king's mercy."[18] Britton excuses "infants under age, and poor people, who through hunger enter the house of another for victuals under the value of twelve pence."[19] According to the Swedish Westgöta-Lag, a poor man who can find no other means of relieving himself and his family from hunger may thrice with impunity appropriate food belonging to somebody else, but if he does so a fourth time he is punished for theft.[20] The Canonist says, "Necessitas legem non {287} habet"[21]--"Raptorem vel furem non facit necessitas, sed voluntas."[22] This principle has the sanction of the Gospel. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?"[23] [Footnote 13: Stephen, _op. cit._ ii. 108. So, also, according to Bacon's _Maxims of the Law_, reg. 5 (_Works_, vii. 344), homicide is in such a case justifiable.] [Footnote 14: Reg. _v._ Dudley and Stephens, in _Law Reports, Cases determined in the Queen's Bench Division_, xiv. 273 _sqq._] [Footnote 15: _Ibid._ xiv. 276.] [Footnote 16: Bacon, _Maxims of the Law_, reg. 5 (_Works_, vii. 343).] [Footnote 17: Reg. _v._ Dudley and Stephens, in _Law Reports, Queen's Bench Division_, xiv. 286.] [Footnote 18: Hale, _op. cit._ i. 54.] [Footnote 19: Britton, i. 11, vol. i. 42.] [Footnote 20: _Westgöta-Lagen II._ þiufua bolker, 14, p. 164 _sq._] [Footnote 21: Gratian, _Decretum_, iii. 1. 11.] [Footnote 22: _Ibid._ iii. 5. 26.] [Footnote 23: _St. Matthew_, xii. 1 _sqq._]