Statutes are to be construed in accord object. § 1131. In the first case reported on the subject, Lord Kenyon said: "This indictment being founded on the statute 30 Geo. II. c. 24, is different from a common law indictWhen it passed, it was considered to extend to ance with every case where a party had obtained money by falsely representing himself to be in a situation in which he was not, or any occurrence which had not happened, to which persons of ordinary caution might give credit. The statute of the 33 Hen. VIII. c. 1, requires a false seal or token to be used to bring the person imposed upon into the confidence of the other; but that being found to be insufficient, the statute 30 Geo. II. c. 24, introduced another offence, describing it in terms exceedingly general. It seems difficult to draw the line, and to say to what cases the statute shall extend, and therefore we must see whether each particular case as it arises comes within it. In the present case, four men came to the prosecutor, representing a race as about to take place; that William Lewis should go to a certain distance within a limited time; that they betted on the event, and they should probably win; he was perhaps too credulous, and gave confidence to them, and advanced his money; and afterwards the whole story proved to be an absolute fiction. Then the defendants, morally speaking, have been guilty of an offence. I admit there are certain singularities which are not the subject of criminal law. But when the criminal law happens to be auxiliary to the law of morality, I do not feel any inclination to explain it away. Now this offence is within the words of the act, for the defendants have by false pretences fraudulently contrived to obtain money from the prosecutor, and I see no reason why it should not be held to be within the meaning of the statute." Ashurst, J., said: "The statute 30 Geo. II. c. 24, created an offence which did not exist before, and I think it includes the present. The legislature saw that all men were not equally prudent, and this statute was passed to protect the weaker part of mankind." Buller, J., remarked: “The ingredients of this offence are the obtaining money by false pretences and with intent to defraud. Barely asking another for a sum of money is not sufficient, but some pretence must be used, and that pretence false; and the intent is necessary to constitute the crime. 1 Young v. R., 3 T. R. 98. If the intent be made out, and the false pretence used in order to effect it, it brings the case within the statute."1 § 1132. In an early case on the New York statute, Walworth, Chancellor, when commenting in the Court of Errors on the law as above laid down, said: "I am aware from numerous cases which have come under my notice, judicially and otherwise, that the rule of morality established by the decisions under these statutes, and by the common law of Scotland, has been deemed too strict for those who, in 1825 and subsequently, have been engaged in defrauding widows and orphans, and the honest and unsuspecting part of the community, by inducing them to invest their little all, which, in many instances, was their only dependence for the wants and infirmities of age, in the purchase of certain stocks of incorporated companies, which the vendors fraudulently represented as sound and productive, although they at the time knew the institutions to be insolvent, and their stock perfectly worthless. But I am yet to learn that a law which punishes a man for obtaining the property of his unsuspecting neighbor by means of any wilful misrepresentation or deliberate falsehood, with intent to defraud him of the same, is establishing a rule of morality which will be deemed too rigid for the respectable merchants and other fair business men of the city of New York, or any other part of the State. Neither do I believe that any honest man will be in danger of becoming a tenant of the state prison if the statute against obtaining money, or other things of value, by false and fraudulent pretences, is carried into full effect, according to the principles of the decisions to which I have referred. But it may indeed limit and restrain the fraudulent speculations and acts of some, whose principles of moral honesty are regulated solely by the denunciations of the penal code. The law on this point, as laid down by the Supreme Court in this and numerous other cases, is unquestionably the settled law of the land, in conformity with both the spirit and the intent of a positive legislative enactment." § 1133. "It should be remembered, however," to quote from a judge whose opinions on criminal jurisprudence are entitled to pecu 1 See, also, the interesting and welldigested opinion of Recorder Vaux, in Hutchinson and Turner's Cases, which are, in fact, the first instances in Penn sylvania in which the law was settled. Recorder's Decisions, 47, 75. 2 People v. Haynes, 14 Wend. 546, 559. liar weight," that the term 'false pretence' is of great latitude, and may be made to embrace any and every false representation made by a party fraudulently obtaining property from another which a prosecutor will swear has induced him to part with such property. Is this act to have a range so wide and sweeping as this, or is it to be limited in its operation? and in what does such limitation consist? Although in ethics every misrepresentation is morally wrong, yet if so severe a standard of conduct is to be introduced into our criminal code, it is plainly to be seen that breach of contract and crime will be scarcely divided by an appreciable line, and that criminal tribunals will hereafter be employed in punishing infamously acts which have heretofore been understood as only creating civil liabilities. A rule of such extreme urgency might, in some instances, justly chastise a bad man; but it could not fail to be terribly abused by exasperated or reckless creditors, smarting under losses, and stimulated by the fierce spirit of revenge, for wrongs supposed or real." § 1134. To the same effect remarks Rogers, J., of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in a case of malicious prosecution: "The act is intended to punish a criminal offence, not to be used as a means of collecting debts, however just; and to suffer it to be perverted for that purpose will necessarily lead to great injustice and oppression. We are not without reason for believing that it has been already used as an instrument to wring money from the sympathy and fear of friends, as well as a means of extortion from the timid on pretended demands. A stranger from another or distant State may or has been compelled to pay unjust, or at least contested demands, rather than encounter the risk, expenses, and mortification of attending a prosecution for fraud, knowing that the charge may be supported by the oath of the prosecutor himself. When, therefore, we find that the creditor, instead of pursuing the supposed criminal to judgment, stops short on receiving the amount of his demand, and discharges the accused from any other proceeding, what is the rational inference? What are we to conclude but that his design was to collect his debt, rather than punish the offender in promotion (violation ?) of the very object and intention of the act."2 1 King, J., Com. v. Hutchinson, 2 2 Prough . Entriken, 11 Penn. St. Pars. 309; 2 Penn. L. J. 242. 84-Rogers, J. A false pretence, under the statute, is such a designed misrepresentation of an existing condition as induces the party Definition. to whom it is made to part with his property. 2. Character of the Pretences. § 1135. Hence the rule may be broadly stated, that any designed misrepresentation of an existing condition, by which a party obtains goods of another, is a false pretence under the statute.1 3 Pretence that de- son of wealth is within statute. Whether or not the pretence that the defendant is a man of wealth and credit is enough to support an indictment is a question which does not appear in England to have received an express decision; though a case already cited certainly goes a great way to establish the affirmative doctrine. In an early New York case, it was held that fraudulently obtaining goods on such a pretence is indictable. And the same was held in a later case, where the defendant represented himself to be in successful business as a merchant in Boston worth from $9000 to $10,000 over and above all his debts; and, to give weight to this assertion, represented that he had never had a note protested in his life, and had then no indorsers; the truth appearing in evidence that he was at the time wholly insolvent. And it may be generally said that a knowingly false specific averment of wealth and solvency is within the statute." 1 See Com. v. Drew, 19 Pick. 179; State v. Phifer, 65 N. C. 321. As to distinction between false pretences and larceny, see Zink v. People, 77 N. Y. 114. fraudulently obtained goods by falsely representing himself to be a joint owner with his father of a number of cows and other stock on a neighboring farm, it was held this was within 2 R. v. Henderson, C. & M. 328. See the statute, and his minority did not Pasley v. Freeman, 3 T. R. 51. People v. Conger, 1 Wheel. Cr. Cas. 449; approved by Nelson, J., in People v. Haynes, infra. People v. Haynes, 11 Wend. 565. Ibid.; People v. Kendall, 25 Wend. Where the defendant, then a minor, avail in a criminal action, although it would have in a civil. People v. Kendall, 25 Wend. 399. In Vermont a more restricted view is taken, based mainly on the distinctive limitations of the Vermont statute. State v. Sumner, 10 Vt. 587; see Dyer v. Tilton, 23 Vt. 313. That this view is peculiar to Vermont, see Bigelow on Fraud, 25. In New York, by the Penal Code of 1882, § 544, it is essential to sustain a And so that defendant possessed certain specified assets. § 1136. Whatever we may think on the last point, we may hold it settled that it is a false pretence under the statute to falsely claim the ownership of specified assets on which credit is given. Thus in one of the earliest cases under the Pennsylvania statute, two distinct false pretences were averred one, that the defendant had in the hands of his guardians in New York an estate equal to two thousand dollars a year; the other that he would procure and bring on from New York money from his mother to pay the prosecutor. The first of these was held to be a false pretence under the statute.3 Same rule applies when object negotiable paper. § 1137. The same rule applies when the object is to obtain negotiable paper. Thus where an indictment charged that N. represented to O. that he possessed certain is to obtain specified valuable property, which he would sell him for four bills of exchange on Philadelphia, and that in consequence of this representation the bills were drawn by O., and that this representation was made knowingly and designedly, and with intent to cheat O. of his drafts, and that in fact N. possessed no such property as he pretended to have, this was held to present a false pretence under the statute." § 1138. It has further been held that a false representation that the defendant had money in the hands of a third person, absent at prosecution based on the purchaser's statement of his means, that such statement should be in writing and signed. 1 See cases under § 1138. 2 Com. v. Burdock, 2 Barr, 163, citing Mitchell's Case, 2 East P. C. 936; R. v. Goodhall, R. & R. 461; R. v. Douglas, 1 Mood. C. C. 262; R. v. Jackson, 3 Camp. 370; R. v. Parker, 7 C. & P. 825; R. v. Henderson, 1 C. & M. 138. See, to same effect, R. v. Cooper, L. R. 2 Q. B. D. 510; 36 L. T. 671; 13 Cox C. C. 617; State v. Tomlin, 5 Dutch. 13. In Pierce v. People, 81 Ill. 98, it was held that a false exhibition of business cards and of drafts on a bank was a false pretence. When the false pretence is in writing the meaning of any ambiguous terms is for the jury, while the construction is for the court. 3 Com. v. Hutchinson, 2 Penn. L. J. 244; 2 Parsons, 309. Where the pretence was that the defendant owned real estate on Passyunk Road worth seven thousand dollars, and that he had personal property and other means to meet his liabilities, and that he was in good credit at the Philadelphia Bank, the case was held within the statute. Com. v. McCrossin, 3 Penn. L. J. 219. Infra, § 1195. State v. Newell, 1 Mo. 177.. |