FORGERY is the counterfeit (a) making or altering of any writing with intent to defraud.' It is a misdemeanor at common law, punishable by fine and imprisonment, (b) and a conviction of it, as of any other species of the crimen falsi, makes a man infamous, and formerly rendered him incompetent as a witness. (c)

The forgery of bills or notes, or of any part of them, and the uttering of them knowing them to be forged, are respectively felonies, punishable by penal servitude for life.(d)

Fraudulently obliterating or altering the crossing of a check is felony.(e)

(a) See Reg. v. White, 1 Den. C. C. 208.

(b) 4 Bl. Com. 248.

(c) Com. Dig. Testm. A. 5; Rex v. Davis, 5 Mod. 74. He is now capacitated by 6 & 7 Vict. c. 85.

(d) 24 & 25 Vict. c. 98, s. 22.

1

(e) Ibid. s. 25.

1 Ame's Case, 2 Greenl. 365; Commonwealth v. Ladd, 15 Mass. 526; People v. Schull, 9 Cowen 778; Barnum v. State, 15 Ohio 717.

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*The fraudulent signing of a bill or note for any other person by procuration or otherwise, without lawful authority, or knowingly uttering the same, has, by the recent act 24 & 25 Vict. c. 98, s. 24, for the first time been erected into a felony.(f)

Inducing a person by violence or threats to execute a bill or note or other valuable security is now also for the first time made a felony.(g)

Fraudulently to obtain by false pretences a signature to a bill or note, or the destruction of the instrument in whole or in part, is now a misdemeanor.(h)

Forging or uttering such a bill or note as the legislature has declared void is not within the statutes, as, for example, a bill or note for less than 208., or a bill or note for less than 57., which did not comply with the requisites of 17 Geo. 3, c. 30,(i) in the former state of the law.

Where there is no payee, or no maker's name, it has been held that the offence is not within the act.(j)

A mere informality, as the omission of the word POUNDS in the body, where the letter £ precedes the figures 50 in the margin,(k) does not prevent the crime amounting to forgery.

In order to constitute forgery, it is not necessary that the instru ment should be duly stamped, or stamped at all.()

(f) See as to the law before this statute, Maddock's case, 3 Russ., C. & M. 499; Reg. v. White, 1 Den. C. C. 208; 2 C. & K. 404.

See Rex v. Phipoe, 2 Leach 673; Rex v. L. R.).

(g) 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96, s. 48. Edwards, 6 C. & P. 521 (25 E. C. (h) 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96, s. 90. See Reg. v. Danger, 1 D. & B. C. C. 307. (i) Rex v. Moffatt, 1 Leach 431; 2 East, P. C. 954, s. c.

(j) Rex v. Riehards, R. & R., C. C. 193; Rex v. Randall, R. & R., C. C. 195; and see as to other fatal defects, Rex v. Jones, Doug. 287; Rex v. Pateman, R. & R. 455, where there was no maker's name; Rex v. Burke, R. & R. 496; Rex v. Wilcox, Bayley, 6th ed. 11. To constitute the forgery of a bill of exchange within 1 Will. 4, c. 66, s. 4, the instrument must be complete: Reg. v. Turpin, 2 C. & K. 820 (61 E. C. L. R.). Forging an acceptance to an instrument in the form of a bill, but without the drawer's name, is not within the statute: Reg. v. Butterwick, 2 Moo. & R. 196.

(k) Rex v. Post, R. & R. 101, and Bayley 11; and see Collinson's case, 2

Leach 1048.

(1) Teague's case, 2 East, P. C. 979; R. & R. 33, s. c. ; Rex v. Hawkeswood, 1 Leach 257; 2 East, P. C. 955, s. c.; Rex v. Lee, 1 Leach 258, n.; Merton's case, 2 East, P. C. 955; and see 33 & 34 Vict. c. 97, s. 17.

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The most common species of forgery is fraudulently *writing the name(m) of an existing person. But a fraudulent misapplication of the genuine signature of another man is as much forgery as counterfeiting his signature. Thus, where the prisoner, having in his possession the genuine signature of one Thomas Gibson, wrote over it a promissory note for 64007., he was indicted and convicted of having forged the note.(n) And where the same prisoner, having the genuine signature of Samuel Edwards, wrote on the other side of the paper a promissory note, payable to Samuel Edwards, and so turned the genuine signature into an indorsement, he was convicted of forging the indorsement. (o) So if a clerk be intrusted to fill up a blank check signed by his master with a particular sum, and he fraudulently inserts a larger sum, it is a forgery of the check.(p)

There may be an innocent misapplication of his own genuine signature by the party himself. Thus, where a man was induced to sign his name to a bill by a fraudulent misrepresentation of the nature of the instrument, it was held that, if not guilty of negligence, he was not liable even to an innocent holder, any more than if he had been blind or illiterate, and the instrument had been falsely and fraudulently read over to him.(q)1

(m) Making a mark and suffering the assumed name to be written against it is forgery: Rex v. Dunn, 1 Leach 57; 2 East, P. C. 962. Putting the address of an existing person to a name, being the name of another person, is forgery: Reg. v. Blenkinsop, 1 Den. C. C. 276.

(n) Rex v. Hales, 17 St. Tr. 161.

(0) Ibid. 209, 229.

(p) Reg. v. Wilson, 17 L. J., M. C. 82; 1 Den. C. C. 284, s. c.; Rex v. Hart, 1 Moo. C. C. 486 ; 7 C. & P. 652 (32 E. C. L. R.), s. c.

(q) Foster v. Mackinnon, L. R., 4 C. P. 704; and the English and American authorities there cited.

1 Bank v. Weckerly, 67 Ind. 345; Auten v. Gruner, 90 Ill. 300. If maker had opportunity, but relied on the representation of the payee, he cannot defend against a bonâ fide holder that he did not know what he was signing: Shirts v. Overjohn, 60 Mo. 305; Fredericks v. Clemens, Id. 313; Bank v. Smith, 55 N. H. 593. Fraud in procuring signature to a different note not good even in the hands of innocent holder: Griffiths v. Kellogg, 39 Wisc. 290. A party can acquire no title, legal or equitable, to a note originally obtained by fraud and passed by means of forgery in fraud of the maker: Carpenter v. Bank, 123 Mass. 66; Welch v. Goodwin, Ibid. 71.

To sign the name of a fictitious or non-existing person is forgery.(r) Where the prisoner was convicted of forging an order for payment of money, and it appeared that he had bought goods from the prosecutor and paid for them with a draft signed in the fictitious name of H. Turner, although the prosecutor had sworn that he gave credit to the prisoner and not to the draft, it was held that the prisoner was rightly convicted. The judges said that it was a false instrument, not drawn by any such person as *it purported [*334] to be, and that the using a fictitious name was only for the purpose of deceiving.(8) But the signing a fictitious name will not amount to forgery if it were used on other occasions as well as for that very fraud, or system of fraud, of which the forgery forms a part.(t) Where proof is given of the prisoner's real name, and no proof of any change of name until the time of the fraud committed, it lies on the prisoner to show that he has before assumed the false name on other occasions and for other purposes unconnected with forgery.(u)

It is a forgery, also, to sign a man's own name with intention that the signature should pass for the signature of another person of the same name. (v) And where a person, whose name was Thomas Brown, was indicted for forging a promissory note signed Thomas Brown, and it appeared that he had uttered the note as a note of Captain Brown, a fictitious person, and the prisoner was convicted, the judges held the conviction right.(x) But the adoption of a false description and addition where a false name is not assumed is not forgery. Thus, where the prisoner drew a bill and directed it to "Mr. Thomas Bowden, baize manufacturer, Romford, Essex," and it was accepted by one Thomas Bowden, but there was no Thomas Bowden of Romford, it was held by a majority of the judges that

(r) Rex v. Francis, Bayley, 6th ed. 572; Russ. & Ry. 209; Lockett's case, 1 Leach 94; East P. C. 940; Taft's case, 1 Leach 172; East P. C. 959; or in the prisoner's own name to represent a fictitious firm: Reg. v. Rogers, 8 C. & P. 629 (34 E. C. L. R.).

(s) Sheppard's case, 1 Leach 226; 2 East, P. C. 967; Whiley's case, R. & R. 90.

(t) Rex v. Bontien, R. & R. 260.

(u) Peacock's case, R. & R. 278.

(v) Mead v. Young, 4 T. R. 28.

(x) Rex v. Parkes, 2 Leach 773; 2 East, P. C. 963, s. c.

the giving a false description of Bowden on the bill with intent to defraud was not forgery.(y)

Where the signature on the bill is genuine, an uttering by another person with a representation that he is the person whose signature is on the bill is not forgery nor a felonious uttering. The prisoner uttered a bill purporting to be payable to Bernard M'Carthy, or order, and having the indorsement B. M'Carthy thereon: he was indicted for forging that indorsement and uttering it knowing it to be forged; the jury found that there was such a man as B. M'Carthy and that the indorsement was his handwriting, but that the prisoner passed himself off as that B. M'Carthy when he uttered the bill. The judges were unanimous *that as the indorsement was not forged the prisoner was not liable to be convicted.(z)

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Writing a principal's name 'per procuration," but without authority, was not until the recent statute(a) forgery;(b) nor, as it should seem, writing merely another man's name under a false pretence of authority, (c) without any intention of imitating his handwriting.

Every fraudulent alteration, whether by subtraction, addition or substitution, is forgery, and would be so within the statutes, even did they not contain the word alter, as was decided on 2 Geo. 2, c. 15, which did not contain that word. (d) The statute 11 Geo. 4 & 1 Will. 4, c. 66, contains the word "alter" as well as "forge." Nevertheless, an alteration may be described in the indictment as forgery.(e) So, e converso, the discharging one indorsement and the insertion of another may be described as the alteration of an indorsement.(f)

(y) Webb's case, R. & R. 405; 3 B. & B. 229 (7 E. C. L. R.), s. c.; Rex v. Watts, R. & R. 436; 6 Moore 442; 3 B. & B. 197 (7 E. C. L. R.), s. c.

(z) Rex v. Hevey, 1 Leach 229; 2 East, P. C. 556, s. c.; Bayley 577. (a) Vide ante, p. 332.

(6) Reg. v. White, 1 Dem. C. C. 208; 2 C. & K. 404 (61 E. C. L. R.), s. c. (c) Ibid.; but see Awde v. Dixon, 6 Exch. 869.

(d) Rex v. Elsworth, Bayley, 6th ed. 574; 2 East, P. C. 986; Reg. v. Blenkinsop, 1 Den. C. C. 276.

(e) Rex v. Teague, R. & R. 33; 2 East, P. C. 979, s. c.; Rex v. Post, R. & R. 101; Rex v. Treble, 2 Taunt. 228; 2 Leach 1040; R. & R. 164, s. c.

(f) Rex v. Birkett, R. & R. 251.