Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/763

F K A F R A 727 conception renders it impossible to treat fraud per se as a crime. But there are specific offences (botli at common law and by statute) of which fraud is the gist, and in dealing with these the courts have had some little difficulty in drawing the line between criminal and non-criminal fraud. At common law it would appear that only those cheats or frauds are indictable which amount to "fraudulently obtain ing the property of another by any deceitful and illegal practice or token (short of felony) ivhich affects or may affect the public " (Russell On Crimes, vol. ii.). Chief Justice Cockburn in one case stated, as the result of the authorities, that " if a person in the course of his trade, openly and publicly carried on, were to put a false mark upon an article so as to pass it off as a genuine one, when in fact it was only a spurious one, and the article was sold and money obtained by means of that false mark or token, that would be a cheat at common law." On the other hand, cheats by means of a bare lie or false affirmation in a private transaction are not indictable at common law ; e.g., when a merchant falsely pretended that a certain parcel of gum was gum seneca, whereas it was an inferior and less valuable gum, the fraud was held not indictable. And in another case where the defendant was charged with obtaining money from another by a falsehood, Chief Justice Holt said, " Shall we indict one man for making a fool of another 2 Let him bring his action." Frauds affecting the crown would be indictable, and so would any cheat aimed at the general public, e.g., when an impostor maims himself to have a pretence for asking charity. Russell considers that the publication of false news likely to produce any public detriment would be criminal. The principal criminal enactment against frauds is 24 and 25 Viet., c. 96, 75-90. By 88, " whoever shall by any false pretence obtain from any other person any chattel, money, or valuable security, with intent to defraud, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour." Other sections deal with frauds by agents, bankers, or factors, by trustees, by directors of companies (keeping fraudulent accounts, pub lishing false statements, &c.). Other enactments are the statutes of Elizabeth against fraudulent conveyances (13 Eliz., c. 5, and 27 Eliz., c. 4); 9 Geo. II., c. 5 (persons pre tending to exercise witchcraft, tell fortunes, &c.) ; 25 and 26 Viet., c. 88 (forgery, trade marks, &c.) ; the Debtors Act, 1869 (fraudulent debtors, &c.). The distinction between private and public frauds does not hold in the law of Scotland. Thus if a person undertake to supply an article according to sample, or an article which has been inspected and ordered, and intentionally send a substance which is not the thing contracted for at all, or which, though containing some proportion of the article ordered, is an adulterated mixture, he is guilty of falsehood, fraud, and wilful imposition (Macdonald s Criminal Law of Scotland}. This passage may be compared with the private frauds cited above. (E. K.) FRAUENBURG, a town of Prussia, province of East Prussia, government district of Konigsberg, is situated on the Frische Haff, and at the mouth of the Baude, 41 miles S.W. of Konigsberg. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic bishop of Ermeland. The cathedral, which stands on an eminence, possesses six towers, and forms a kind of fortress. The astronomer Copernicus was canon at Frauen- burg, and there is a monument to him in the cathedral. He is said to have constructed the tower containing ma chinery for supplying the town and neighbourhood with water. The tower is no longer used for this purpose. The population of Frauenburg is about 2500. FRAUENFELD, a town of Switzerland, capital of the canton of Thurgau (or Thurgovia), is situated in a beautiful and fertile district on the Murg, 23 miles N.E. of Zurich. It is the artillery depot for east Switzerland, and possesses an old castle with a tower belonging to the 10th century, an old Capuchin monastery, a town-house, an armoury, and a canton school. The chief industries are spinning and the manufacture of cotton cloth, but many of the inhabitants are engaged in agriculture. After the extinction of the countship of Alt-Frauenfeld, the town came into the pos session of the counts of Kyburg, and subsequently into that of Austria. In 1799 a battle was fought there between the French and Austrians. The population in 1870, includ ing the adjoining villages of Kurzdorf and Langdorf, was 4261. FRAUENLOB, the name by which a German poet of the 13th century is almost exclusively known, though his real name was Heinrich von Meissen. How he acquired the sobriquet has not been decided, whether it was from his song in honour of the Virgin (Die Heilige Jungfrau), or because in another of his pieces he defended the use of the word Fran instead of Weib, or simply because he sang much in praise of women. The last explanation is the one that has received the stamp of popular acceptance. Frauenlob was born in 1260 of a humble burgher family. His youth was spent in straitened circumstances, but he gradually acquired reputation as a singer at the various courts of the German princes. In 1278 we find him with Rudolph I. in the Marchfeld, in 1286 he was at Prague at the knighting of Wenceslaus II., and in 1311 he was present at a knightly festival celebrated by Waldemar of Brandenburg before Rostock. After this he settled in Mainz, and there, according to the popular account, founded the first school of Meister-singers. He died in 1318, and was buried in the cloisters of the cathedral at Mainz. His grave is still marked by a copy made in 1783 of the original tombstone of 1318 ; and in 1842 a monument by Schwanthaler was erected by the ladies of the city in another part of the cloisters. Frauenlob s poems make a great display of learning, and their versification abounds in tricks of rhyme. Ettmiiller published a very full edition in 1843. See Von dev Hagen s Minncsingcr vo]. iv. ; Bartsch, Mcisterlieder dcr Kolmarcr Handschrift ; and Schrber t in Bartsch s Gcrmanist. Studien. An English translation of Frauenlob s Cantica Canticorum by A. E. Kroeger appeared in 1877 at St Louis, United States. FRAUNHOFER, JOSEPH VON (1787-1826), a~celebrated optician, was born at Straubing in Bavaria, March 6, 1787. His father, a poor glazier, having died in 1798, young Fraunhofer in August of the following year was apprenticed to Weichselberger, a glass-polisher and looking-glass maker. Having by day no time that he could call his own, he studied the few old books that he possessed during leisure snatched from sleep. On the 21st of July 1801 he nearly lost his life by the fall of the house in which he lodged, and the elector of Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph, who was present at his extrication from the ruins, gave him 18 ducats. With a portion of this sum he obtained release from the last six months of his apprenticeship, and with the rest he purchased a glass-polishing machine. He now employed himself in making optical glasses, and in engraving on metal, devoting his spare time to the perusal of works on mathematics and optics. In 1806 he obtained the place of optician in the mathematical institute which in 1804 had been founded at Munich by Joseph von Utzschneider, G. Reichenbach, and J. Liebherr ; and in 1807 arrangements were made by Utzschneider for his instruction by Pierre Louis Guinand, a skilled optician, in the fabrication of flint and crown glass, in which he soon became an adept (see R. Wolf, Gesch. der Wissensch. in Deutsckl., bd. xvi. p. 586). With Reichenbach and Utzschneider, Fraunhofer esta blished in 1809 an optical institute at Benedictbeuern, near Munich, of which he in 1818 became sole manager. The institute was in 1819 removed to Munich, and on Fraunhofer s death came under the direction of G. Merz.