The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1871-05-04
The Law Of False Pretenses.

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1t has never been the policy of the
law to punish mere lying. Legal writ
ers have sometimes maintained that
morally there is only the slightest diff
ference between liar and thief; yet
such is not the common opinion. Only
when lying is carried SO far as to consti-
tute the offence of obtaining money or
property by false pretences does the law
exert its power to punish it.
The difficulty, however, in drawing
the line between false pretence and a
mere lie is frequently very great.
Stephens, in his work on the criminal
law of England, says that this difficulty
is inherent in the nature of the subject,
and is one which no skill ON the part of
the legislature can avoid. A recent
crown case in England strikingly illus
trates the truth of the remark.
| John Ardley, the prisoner, induced the
complainant to purchase of him chail
by means of fraudulently representing it
to be made Of fifteen-carat gold, when in
reality the gold of which it was COM
| posed was q trifie over six-carat. On
his trial under an indictment for thus
obtaining money under false pretences,
the jury found that the prisoner, when
he represented the chain to be fifteen
carat gold, knew the representation to
be false. The question before the high
er court was whether conviction based
only on this finding of the jury could be
sustained.
Five judges delivered opinions in the
case, all in favor of affirming the convic-
ton. Chief Justice Bovill carefully re-
viewed the Queen against Byron, lead
ing case on the questions of law iEvolv-
ed. 1t was there held not to be false
pretence to represent that certain spoons
were equal to Elkington's Az" Elk
ington's A" being description of GER
tain silver spoons containing a large
proportion of silver. Such a represent
alton was regarded by the Court as
merely an expression of opinion, and
not an affirmation of a definite, triable
fact. In this case, however, the state
ment made by the prisoner was as to
specific fact within his actual knowledge
and the judgment of the Court was
based on this fact. In the former case
several OF the judges expressed the opin-
ion that if the prisoner had said that the
spoons aoere Eikington's A." instead of
simply that they were equal to them, the
conviction would have been good. Here
the prisoner had told the buyer that he
was getting fifteen carats of pure gold
for his money, when in reality he was
only getting six, and the seller knew it.
If the theory on which this case is
decided be correct, the amount of the
difference in value between the repre-
sented quality of gold and the actual
quality would have no effect upon the
character of the offence. 1t must be a
definite money difference, of course, but
that is all. A jeweller who sells four
teen-carat chain as an eighteen-carat
chain, being aware of the deception,
would be guilty of the crime of obtain
ing money under false pretences.
1t seems to US that there is a safer
standard by which to determine what
constitutes this crime, SO far as it applies
to sales; and this is suggested by re-
mark of Justice Crompton in the case of
the Queen against Byron above referred
to. He says that the statute applies
"when the thing sold is of an entirely
different description from what it is
represented to be-" This rule, if ap-
piled to Arnold's case, sustains the con-
viction. The prisoner professed to sell a
gold chain; but any chain composed of
a poorer quality than twelve-carat gold
would contain more alloy than gold,
and hence would be chain in which
some base metal predominated. This
being the case with the six-carat chain,
brings it clearly within Justice Cromp-
toms definition; while, in the other ex-
ample which we gave, the jeweller who
sold fourteen-carat as eighteen-carat
gold would escape.
The moralist may, perhaps, we'll OBJ
ject to this but the law does not un-
dertake to punish all offences against
morality. A large class of acts which
never as yet have been regarded as Grim
inal in legal sense would be punisha-
BILE if, as Chief Justice Bovill thinks, an
untrue statement as to a specific fact
within the actual knowledge of the
vendor constitutes false pretence. 1t
would seem a better and more practica-
BILE rule to add that the statement must
represent the thing sold as essentially
and entirely different from what it re-
ally is.-N. Y Sun.