Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/706

UNITED STATES V. BOCHANAN. 691 �intent of the legislature may be found in the statuts itself, and from other statutes in pari materia; and also by considering the probable effects and consequences that would resuit from a strict literal con- struction. When ascertained, this intent should be followed -with rea- son and discretion, though such construction may seem contrary to the letter of the statute ; for it is the intent which often gives mean- ing to words otherwise obscure and doubtful. The evident intent of the legislature was to guard against frauds on the internai revenue hy preveuting there-useof stamped casks which had once beenemptied; and there was a great and manifest necessity to provide against frauda which could so easily be perpetrated. I am inclined to the opinion that when a retail dealer of distilled spirits draws oflf the contents of a cask as far a.s can be done from the faucet, and then removes it from the place where it had been used in his business, he should com- pletely exhaust the cask, if he so desires, and efface and obliterate the stamp. If the law allows a retail dealer to empty a cask as far as can conveniently be done by the ordinary method, and then remove it from the place where used in the course of his business, and not efface and obliterate the stamp, beeause it still contains a small quan- tity of distilled spirits of little value, then the penalty of -the law can easily be evaded, and the purpose of the legislature be frustrated. �I am also inclined to the opinion that the words "at the time of emplying such cask" ought not to receive such a strict construction as to require the effacing and obliterating of the stamp to be done eo instanti that the cask is emptied; but the act ought to be done in a convenient time, considering the surrounding circumstances affording evidence of reasonable excuse for delay. �If you should be satisfied from the evidence that the wife of the defendant, on the morning of the day when the cask was discovered, had. emptied the cask as far as could be done by the faucet, and had removed it from the place where it had been used in the course of business, and had failed to efface and obliterate the stamp beeause she regarded the cask as still containing distilled spirits of value, which she desired to save, when she could procure the necessary assistance to pour it out of the bung-hole, then I charge you that there was reasonable cause for delay, and the defendant is entitled to a verdict. �If, however, you become fully satisfied from the evidence that the cask wajs entirely empty at the time it was discovered by the deputy colle^tQr, or that it contained.a small quantity of spirits of Httle value. ��� �