Larceny of Referendum Petitions

It seems reasonably certain that the English courts have never considered the absurd and indefensible rule relating to choses in action as applying to all written instruments. Indeed, Regina v. Morrison, supra, refuses to apply the rule to an instrument that was evidence of an obligation between parties. Is it not curious that an English court in the middle of the nineteenth century is found to be restricting its doctrine while an American court in the twentieth century is attempting to extend a transplanted and anarchronistic notion that rests on a fiction which is socially inexpedient?