Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/482

470 pbdeeaIj beportkr. �the charge must have found, that the accused devised a scheme to put counterfeit money in cii-culation by sending throngh the mail to one Bates a letter calculated to induce Bates to purchase counter- feit money at a low priee, for the purpose of putting it off as good. The evidence further showed, and the jury found, that the accused, in order to carry his said scheme into effect, did place in the post-office at New York city a letter such as deseribed in the information, for the purpose of inducing Bates to purchase counterfeit money at a low price, in order that he might put it off as good money for its face value. This evidence was sufficient to make out an offence such as is created by the statute under which this information was framed, notwithstanding the absence of any evidence to show an intention on the part of the accused to defraud Bates or any other particular per- son. �The scheme to defraud deseribed in the information may be a scheme to defraud any person upon whom the bad money might be passed, and it is within the scope of the atatute, although no partic- ular person had been selected as the subject of its operation. Any Bcheme, the necessary resuit of which would be the defrauding of somebody, is a scheme to defraud within the meaning of section 5480, and a scheme to put counterfeit money in circulation is such a scheme. �We are, therefore, of the opinion that the offence charged was proved by the evidence. �Another point taken is that there was no evidence of the corpus delicti except the defendant's admission. But the gist of the offence consists in the abuse of the mail. The corpus delicti was the mailing of the letter in execution of the unlawful scheme. There was direct evidence of the mailing of the letter by some one, and the letter itself showed its unlawful character. This much being shown, it was cer- tainly competent to prove that the defendant was the sertder of the letter by his admission to that effect. �Another point made is that error was committed at the trial by the refusai to permit the jury to inspect a copy of the letter proved to have been mailed, which copy the accused made in the presence of the jury. In this there was no error. It is not allowable, upon an issue as to handwriting, to put in evidence papers, otherwise irrel- evant, merely for the purpose of enabling the jury to institute a com- parison of the writing. The statute of the state of New York, per- mitting a eomparison of writings for the purpose of determining hand- writing, hasno effect upon criminal proceedings in the courts of the ��� �