A Treatise on Criminal Law as Applicable to the Dominion of Canada

separate receipts at the same time, and separate receipts at different times. (a)

The goods stolen must be received by the defendant, and though there be proof of a criminal intent to receive, and a knowledge that the goods were stolen, if the exclu sive possession still remains in the thief, a conviction for receiving cannot be sustained. (b) It is also necessary that the defendant should, at the time of receiving the goods, know that they were stolen. (c)

Where a husband and wife are indicted for receiving, it is proper that the jury should be asked whether the wife received the goods, either from or in the presence of her husband, and where the question was not put, and both husband and wife were convicted, the Court quashed the conviction of the wife. (d)

Where, on a joint indictment against husband and wife for receiving goods with a guilty knowledge, the indictment found specially that the wife did so receive, and that the husband "adopted the wife's receipt " :Held, that the latter words were not equivalent to a verdict of guilty, against the husband. (e)

Upon an indictment for feloniously receiving a hat and a watch, it was proved that, in consequence of information received from L. (the thief), a constable went to a room in a lodging house, where the prisoner slept, and, in a box in that room, found the stolen hat The prisoner produced it at once, and admitted that L. had brought it there, but denied any knowledge of the watch. On the following day, he was taken into custody, and after he had left the house, he told the constable that he

(a) Peg. v. Reardon, L. R. 1 C. C. R. 32, per Pollock, C. B.

(b) R. v. Wiley, 2 Den. 37; 20 L. J. (M. C.) 4; Arch. Cr. Pldg. 436.

(d) Reg. v. Wardroper, 6 U. C. L. J. 262; 1 Bell, C. C. 249. See also Reg. V. Archer, 1 Mood. C. C. 143.

(e) Reg. v. Dring, 4 U. C. L. J. 26; Dears. & B. 329.

knew where the watch was, but did not like to say any thing about it before the people in the house. The watch was not found at the first place, to which he took the constable, but he afterwards sent a boy for it, and the boy having brought it to him, he gave it to the constable: -Held, that there was sufficient evidence to go to the jury of a felonious receiving. (a)

On an indictment for feloniously receiving goods, knowing them to have been stolen, it is unsafe to convict a party as receiver on the evidence of the thief, unless it is confirmed, for otherwise it would be in the power of a thief from malice or revenge, to lay a crime on any one against whom he had a grudge. (b)

The (Imp.) 32 & 33 Vic., c. 99, s. 11, enacts that, when any person, who has been previously convicted of certain specified offences, is found in possession of stolen goods, evidence of such previous conviction shall be admissible to shew his knowledge of the goods being stolen. Service of a notice under this Act, and proof of a previous conviction, does not relieve the prosecution from the necessity of proving that the goods have been stolen. (c)

The writer is not aware of any enactment, in Canada, similar to the above.

Forgery. This offence is defined as the fraudulent making or alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another man's right, (d) or as a false making, or making malo animo, of any written instrument, for the purpose of fraud and deceit. (e)

Forgery takes a very wide range, and includes within

(a) Reg. v. Hobson, 1 U. C. L. J. 36; Dears. C. C. 400.

(b) Reg. v. Robinson, 1 U. C. L. J. N. S. 53; 4 F. & F. 43.

(d) Re Trueman B. Smith, 4 U. C. P. R. 216, per A. Wilson, J.; and see Reg. v. Smith, 1 Dears. & B. 566.

(e) Hall v. Carty, 1 James, 385, per Bliss, J.

it fraudulent acts and fabrications, of various descriptions and classes, effected in the numberless ways to which the evil ingenuity of crime can resort. (a) But it is said that the offence consists in the false making of an instrument purporting to be that which it is not, and not the making of an instrument purporting to be that which it really is, but which contains false statements; and that telling a lie does not become a forgery, because it is reduced to writing. (b)

The instrument must carry, on the face of it, the semblance of that for which it is counterfeited, and not be illegal in its very frame, though it is immaterial whether, if genuine, it would be of validity or not. (c)

On the above principles, the forging or uttering, in this country, a writing purporting to be a bank note, issued by a banking company in the State of Maine, amounts to the crime of forgery, though it is not proved that the company had power, by charter, to issue notes of that description; (d) it being shewn that the note carried on its face the semblance of a bank note, issued by a company in the State of Maine, and there being nothing in its frame to shew it illegal, even though there was no charter or Act of Parliament authorizing the issue of such notes. Even if the illegality were a defence, the onus of proving it would lie on the prisoner. (e) It is no objection that the note is payable in the State of Maine. (ƒ)

A person, having an order for delivery of wheat for the support of poor persons in a municipality, is guilty of forgery, if he materially alters the order, so as to increase

(a) Hall v. Carty, 1 James, 385, per Bliss, J.

(b) Ex parte, E. S. Lamirande, 10 L. C. J., 290, per Drummond, J.

(d) Reg. v. Brown, 3 Allen, 13.

(e) Ib. 15, per Carter, C. J.

(f) Ib.

the quantity of wheat which is obtainable thereunder, with intent to defraud. (a)

So it is forgery to execute a deed in the name of, and as representing, another person, with intent to defraud, even though the prisoner has a power of attorney from such person, but fraudulently conceals the fact of his being only such attorney, and assumes to be principal. (b)

It is forgery, within the meaning of the 32 & 33 Vic., c. 19. s. 23, to make a deed fraudulently, with a false date, when the date is a material part of the deed, although the deed is, in fact, made and executed by and between the persons by and between whom it purports to be made and executed. (c)

Every instrument, which fraudulently purports to be that which it is not, is a forgery, whether the falseness of the instrument consists in the fact that it is made in a false name, or that the pretended date, when that is a material portion of the deed, is not the date at which the deed was, in fact, executed. (d)

Where an instrument professes to be executed at a date different from that at which it really was executed, and the false date is material to the operation of the deed, if the false date is inserted knowingly, and with a fraudulent intent, it is a forgery at common law. (e)

The notion of forgery doth not so much consist in the counterfeiting of a man's hand and seal, as in the endea vouring to give an appearance of truth to a mere deceit and falsity, and either to impose that upon the world as the solemn act of another, which he is in no way privy to, or, at least, to make a man's own act appear to have been done at a time when it was not done, and, by force

(a) Reg. v. Campbell, 18 U. C. Q. B. 416, per Robinson, C. J.

(b) Reg. v. Gould, 20 U. C. C. P. 159, per Gwynne, J.

(e) Ib. 204, per Blackburn, J.

of such a falsity, to give it an operation which, in truth and justice, it ought not to have. (a)

It was the duty of the prisoner, a railway stationmaster, to pay B. for collecting and delivering parcels; and the company provided a form in which the charges were entered by the prisoner under the heads of "Delivery" and "Collecting" respectively. The prisoner having falsely told B. that the company would not pay for delivering, but only for collecting, continued to charge the company for collecting and delivering; and in order to furnish a voucher, after paying B.'s servant the sum entered in the form for collecting, and obtaining his receipt, in writing, for that amount, without either his or B.'s knowledge, put a receipt stamp under this servant's name, and put therein, in figures, a larger sum than he had paid, being the aggregate for collecting and delivering:-Held, that the prisoner was guilty of forgery. (b)

Where, on an indictment for forgery, it appeared that a promissory note had been drawn by the prisoner, payable, two months after date, to the order of one J. S., and afterwards endorsed by said S.: the prisoner then altered the note, by making it payable three months after date, and discounted it at the Bank of British North America, in London, Ontario. The jury having convicted him of forgery, on motion for a new trial, on the ground that the forgery or uttering, if any, was a forgery of or the uttering of a forged endorsement, the note having been made by the prisoner himself, and that there was no legal evidence of an intent to defraud:-Held, that the altering of the note, while it was in his own possession, after endorsement, was a forgery of a note, and not of an endorsement, and that the passing of the note to a third

(a) Reg. v. Ritson, L. R. 1 C. C. R. 204, per Blackburn, J.

(b) Reg. v. Griffiths, 4 U. C. L. J. 240; Dears. & B. 548; 27 L. J. (M. C.) 205.

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