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124 Mass. 449

Commonwealth v. Butts

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1878-05-02

Indictment, on the Gen. Sts. e. 161, § 18,* charging the defendant with the larceny, on January 20,1877, of “divers promissory notes of the amount and of the value in all of five thousand dollars, a more particular description of which is to the jurors unknown, of the property, goods and chattels of one Judson N. Farrar, in his possession then and there being.” In the Superior Court, before the jury were empanelled, the defendant filed a motion to quash the indictment,…

Relies on Commonwealth v. Hussey · Commonwealth v. Green

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-05-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently January 1937

1 district · 13 state decisions

401878188018901900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Sottle, J.

¶1The motion to quash the indictment was properly denied. Where all the articles alleged to have been stolen are hi one kind, the allegation may be “ divers,” “ divers and sundry,” or “ a quantity,” without stating any specific number, with an averment of the aggregate value of the whole. Commonwealth v. Sawtelle, 11 Cush. 142. Commonwealth v. O'Connell, 12 Allen, 451. Commonwealth v. Hussey, 111 Mass. 432. Commonwealth v. Green, 122 Mass. 333. An offence was therefore charged in the indictment with sufficient definiteness.

¶2There was no variance between the allegation and the proof as to the character of the property stolen. A bank-bill is a promissory noté, as is manifest from the fact that it is the promise of the banking corporation to pay the bearer of the instrument a certain sum of money on demand. And it has been repeatedly decided that, under statutes for counterfeiting or for uttering forged promissory notes, indictments are sustained by *453proof of counterfeiting or of uttering forged bank-bills. Commonwealth v. Simonds, 14 Gray, 59. Commonwealth v. Woods, 10 Gray, 477. Commonwealth v. Carey, 2 Pick. 47. The notes stolen might have been described in the indictment either as bank-notes or as promissory notes. The latter description is the more general, and includes the former. The evidence would support the charge in either form of statement. Commonwealth v. Hussey, and Commonwealth v. Green, ubi supra.

¶3The notes having been entrusted to the cashier to be conveyed to the bank, he had a special property in them, which supported the allegation of ownership. Gen. Sts. a. 172, § 12. If they were in his possession and custody when stolen, the allegations in the indictment, both as to the ownership and the possession, were sustained. Whether this was so or not was a question for the jury. The exceptions show that it was submitted to them. We do hot understand that the bill of exceptions purports to set forth the instructions of the court in full, but only so much as to show a ruling that there was evidence on which it would be competent for them to find a verdict against the defendant. This ruling was unquestionably correct. If the defendant was dissatisfied with the terms in which the ruling was made, he should have excepted thereto, and spread them on the record. If he wished for further rulings, he should have asked for them.

¶4Exceptions overruled.

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