Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/561

DNITBD STATES V. 8CHINDLEE. 549 �which the defendant was indicted. To hold otherwise would permit an agent to obtain the allowance of a pension upon the ground that it was due, and, when indicted for withholding the money from the pensioner, escape punishment upon the ground that it was not due. �The next question is raised by the objection of the defendant to the testimony of Mary Bryan, that John Wyman, a witness called by the defendant, had said in the presence of Mrs. Helfrieh, and after asking if she intended to proceed in this case : "I do wish you would persuade her not to, because it will jug her just as well as it will us. " This objection is pressed upon the ground that Wyman, upon inquiry by the prosecution, had denied making euch a statement to Mary Bryan, and therefore it was error to permit his statement of a collateral fact to be contradicted. But the faot that Wyman, one of the defendant's witnesses, had requested Mrs. Bryan to persuade her mother not to proeeed with her charge against the defendant, and the fact that such request was made in the presence of Mrs. Helfrieh, acoompanied by the statement that "it will jug her just as well as the rest of us," were not collateral facts. If true, they tended to show bias on the part of the witness, and a desire on his part to save the defendant from prosecution. They would have been admissible if no inquiry had first been made of Wyman in regard to them, and in- quiry of and deniai by him did not make them any less admissible. These facts, therefore, whether denied by Wyman or not, were prop- erly admitted in evidence, for they went to the credibility of Wyman, the defendant's witness. The jury were charged that these facts were material in that aspect alone. �The only remaining point made relates to the charge of the court in respect to the defendant's failure to produoe one Wendalin Smith as a witness. In order to a correct understanding of the question now to be cousidered, the circumstances under which it arose must be stated. �At the trial the decisive question waa, whether at a certain time and place the pensioner, Mrs. Helfrieh, received the whole of her pension money, or only the sum of $500. �The defendant, Schindler, testified that the pension checkfor $1,375, sent by the pension agent in a letter addressed to Mrs. Helfrieh, was by him taken from the letter in the presence of one Wendalin Smith ; that subsequently Mrs. Helfrieh, at her house, indorsed the check in the presence of himself and Wendalin Smith ; that he and Wendalin Smith then went together to Monticelloto get the check cashed; that part of the money obtained on the check was carried by himself and ��� �