Manufacturer’s or owner’s oath, in cases where goods, wares, or merchandise, have not been actually purchased.
I , do solemnly and truly (swear or affirm) that the entry now delivered by me to the collector of , contains a just and true account of all the goods, wares, and merchandise, imported by, or consigned to, me, in the , whereof is master, from ; that the said goods, wares, and merchandise, were not actually bought by me, or by my agent, in the ordinary mode of bargain and sale, but that, nevertheless, the invoice which I now produce, contains a just and faithful valuation of the same, at their fair market value, including charges of purchasing, carriages, bleaching, dyeing, dressing, finishing, putting up, and packing, at the time or times, and place or places, when and where produced for my account, (of for account of myself and partners;) that the said invoice contains also a just and faithful account of all charges actually paid, and no other discount, drawback, or bounty, but such as has been actually allowed on the said goods, wares, and merchandise; that I do not know, nor believe in the existence, of any invoice or bill of lading, other than those now produced by me, and that they are in the state in which I actually received them. And I do further solemnly and truly (swear or affirm) that I have not, in the said entry or invoice, concealed or suppressed any thing whereby the United States may be defrauded of any part of the duty lawfully due on the said goods, wares, and merchandise, and that if, at any time hereafter, I discover any error in the said invoice, or in the account now produced, of the said goods, wares, and merchandise, or receive any other invoice of the same, I will immediately make the same known to the collector of this district.
Mode of estimating ad valorem duty.Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the ad valorem rates of duty upon goods, wares, and merchandise, shall be estimated in the manner following: to the actual cost, if the same shall have been actually purchased, or the actual value, if the same shall have been procured otherwise than by purchase, at the time and place, when and where purchased or otherwise procured, or to the appraised value, if appraised, except in cases where goods are subjected to the penalty provided for in the thirteenth section of this act, shall be added all charges, except insurance; and, also, twenty per centum on the said cost or value, and charges, if imported from the Cape of Good Hope, or any place beyond that, or from beyond Cape Horn, or ten per centum if from any otherhe knowing that they had cost more than the prices at which he had entered them. This evidence was objected to on the part of the defendant, as not competent proof to convict the defendant of the crime of perjury; and that if an inference of guilt could be derived from such proof, it was an inference from circumstances, not sufficient, as the best legal testimony, to warrant a conviction. Held, That in order to a conviction, it was not necessary, on the part of the prosecution, to produce a living witness; if the jury would believe, from the within testimony, that the defendant made a false and corrupt oath when he entered the goods. The United States v. Wood, 14 Peters, 430.
The cases in which a living witness to a corpus delicti of the defendant, in a prosecution of perjury, may be dispensed with, are: all such where a person charged with the perjury by falsely swearing to a fact directly disproved by documentary or written testimony, springing from himself, with circumstances showing the corrupt intent: In cases where the perjury charged is contradicted by a public record, proved to have been well known to the defendant when he took the oath, the oath only proved to have been taken; in cases where the party is charged with taking an oath contrary to what he must necessarily have known to be truth, and the false swearing can be proved by his own letters relating to the fact sworn to, or by other written testimony existing and being found in the possession of the defendant, and which has been treated by him as containing the evidence of the fact recited in it. Ibid. The letters of the defendant, showing his knowledge of the actual cost of the goods which had been falsely entered by him, are the best evidence which can be given. This evidence is good under the general principle that a man’s own acts, conduct, and declarations, when voluntary, are always admissible in evidence against him. If the letters of the defendant showed that the invoice book of the vendor of the goods, containing an invoice of the goods enumerated in the invoice to which the defendant had sworn the owner’s oath, in which book the goods were priced higher in the sale of them to the defendant, recognised the book as containing the true invoice, his admission supersedes the necessity of other proof to establish the real price given by him for the goods; and the letters and invoice book in connection preponderate against the oath taken by the defendant, making a living witness to the corpus delicti charged in the indictment, unnecessary. Ibid. See also Taylor et al. v. The United States, 3 Howard, 197.
