Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/448

liO FEDERAL REPORTER. �Lottery Company, were a corporation, as they purported to be ; that they had and oarried on a real lottery. �There was abundant evidence in the case, to justify the deniai of the motion, that there were some parties purporting to be and calling themselves by the name of the Louisiana State Lottery Company who were carrying on a lottery, but it was wholly imraaterial whether they were the same per- Bons named in this act, or whether those persons had ac- cepted their charter or not. It was none the less a lottery in fact and within the prohibition of the statute, whether legally established or wholly illegal, whether its promoters were duly incorporated or not. Indeed, we think that the mailing of a letter or circular concerning a projeeted lottery, one not yet in existence, would clearly be within the letter and spirit of the statute, if it were a letter or circular promoting or de- signed to aid in the organization and setting up of a lottery. There was, therefore, no reason why, at this stage of the case, the court should direct an acquittai of the defendant, when the ■ papers themselves, with the mailing of which he was charged, bore on their face strong if not conclusive evidence that they related to an existing or established lottery. No more evidence of Ihe existence of a lottery need to have been given to justify a conviction than the papers and tickets enclosed in the envelope. �12. The defendant offered no evidence, and the remaining exceptions are to the judge's charge to the jury. The judge charged the jury, among other things, as follows : "In order to convict, you must find that it is a letter concerning a lot- tery in the one case, and circular concerning a lottery in the other. In determining that question you are not confined to the words in the paper. You may look at the surrounding circumstances ; the letter sent which was the order, the tickets enclosed in Exhibit No. 1, {i. e., the letters set out in the first count,) apparently in compliance with the order, the occupa- tion of the defendant, and ail the other circumstances in the case, in order to determine whether or not that letter, form- ing the subject of the first count, was concerning a lottery. If you find that it was concerning a lottery, then it was an ��� �