Word: ransacking
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Commons destroyed all that is summed up by the old saw, "An Englishman's house is his castle." Under the Inskip act, as yet unenforced in full, British police may on mere "suspicion" obtain a High Court justice's order to burst into private homes and ransack them for "treasonable literature." Merely to "possess" such literature (as distinguished from writing, publishing or showing it to anyone who might be "treasonably seduced") is made a crime...
...officer of the University in the presence of the tenant there could be no justifiable ground for any objection. But the example of other Houses demonstrates that lost books can be successfully recovered without recourse to the general search. It is, furthermore, inexcusable to permit irresponsible undergraduates covertly to ransack a fellow House member's quarters. To innocent tenants such an intrusion represents a complete negation of privacy. The performance of the malodorous office may conceivably react tragically upon the character and outlook of a youthful and malleable agent; to those less scrupulous it will present the opportunity...