Exodus 22:1

If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, &c.— If he killed or sold such stolen ox, sheep, or goat, and was legally convicted of the crime, he was to restore five oxen for an ox, &c. If they were found alive upon him, and there was no trouble of a legal process, he was to restore double, Exodus 22:4. It is observable, that a smaller satisfaction is required for a sheep than for an ox; the reason for which seems evidently to be, the greater proportionate value of an ox than a sheep: it should be noted too, that while a double restitution is required for many other thefts, a four or five-fold restitution is required for cattle; which, feeding in the open fields, are more liable to be stolen than money, goods, and jewels, secured in a house. There was a law of Solon, ordaining, that if the owner recovered what had been stolen, the restitution should be double; if not, ten-fold. But, above all things, it is to be noted upon these laws respecting theft, that none of them make theft capital; and how far it may be justifiable for any laws to make it capital, seems a very disputable point. To take away life for a robbery of a few shillings, and to punish such an offender as severely as a murderer, appears inconsistent with the laws of equity and reason, as well as detrimental to the community, which it thus deprives of many lives that might doubtless be rendered very useful to it. Our Saxon ancestors were, in this particular, more equitable perhaps than we. Theft, among them, was not for a long time punished with death; and, even after it was made capital, it was redeemable with money. We refer the reader, desirous of further satisfaction on the subject, to the first dissertation on the government of the Anglo-Saxons in Rapin's History of England.