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154 Mass. 135

Commonwealth v. Watson

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1891-06-25

<p>Complaint—Jurisdiction of Municipal Court — Evidence — Registering Bets — Pool Selling.</p> <p>It is not necessary, to constitute an offence under the St. of 1885, c. 342, § 1, that the defendant’s business should embrace both registering bets and buying or selling pools; if it embraces one of them, it is within the statute; if it embraces more than one, it still may be one business and one offence.</p> <p>A witness who testifies to a transaction as taking place on a certain day may be allowed to refresh his recollection from a memorandum of the transaction made by him on the night of that day.</p> <p>A complaint, addressed to the Municipal Court of the city of Boston, charging the defendant, after the allegations of city, county, and State, with committing an offence “ within the judicial district of said court,” is sufficient as to place to give the court jurisdiction.</p> <p>A complaint alleging that the defendant, in a certain room “ occupied with apparatus, books, and devices ... for the purpose of registering bets and of selling pools upon the results of trials and contests of skill, speed, and endurance of men . . . and upon the results of games and competitions, was present then and there in said room engaged in the business and employment of selling pools . upon the result of a certain game, the same being a trial and contest of the skill of men, to wit, a game of base-ball, to be played by men,” charges an offence within the St. of 1885, c. 342, § 1.</p> <p>On a complaint for being present in a room, occupied with apparatus for the purpose of selling pools upon the results of games and competitions, engaged in the business and employment of selling pools upon results of games of base-ball, there was evidence that in the room were blackboards with rows of names, numbered from one to sixteen, understood by a witness to indicate certain base-ball clubs, each row being different from the other. A witness testified that he asked the defendant for No. 10, which read “ Brook., Pitts., Cleve., Phila.,” paid some money and received a ticket with 10,456 printed on it and 10 pencilled underneath ; and that afterwards he saw the defendant and asked him if combination 10 had won, to which the defendant answered, No. The witness was then permitted to testify that “ combination 10 ” meant the four names in the row numbered 10, and that, as far as he knew, the names signified base-ball clubs. Held, that the defendant had no ground of exception.</p> <p>Two of the witnesses testified that the transaction was a pool, although they saw no fund, and did not know of other persons making wagers at the time. The presiding judge refused to rule that there was no evidence to warrant a conviction, and also that certain specified transactions were wagers in pools; but instructed the jury that he did not suppose all betting was selling pools, defined pools in accordance with a decision of this court, with amplifications, and directed them, unless they found that the defendant was thus engaged in the business of selling pools, that they must acquit him. Held, that the defendant had no ground of exception.</p>

Relies on Commonwealth v. Sturtivant · Nunes v. Perry · Commonwealth v. Ferry

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-06-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently April 1961

3 state decisions

1018911900191019201930194019501960decided

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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Holmes, J.

¶1The motion to quash, and the exception to allowing the witness to refresh his memory from a memorandum made by him on the night of the transactions testified to, are disposed of by the case of Commonwealth v. Clancy, ante, 128. In the present case the defendant is complained of for being present in a room occupied, etc., and engaged in the business and employment of selling pools upon the result of a game of base-ball. It is unnecessary to state the evidence in detail. In the room were blackboards with rows of four names, understood by the witnesses to be names or abbreviations of names of baseball clubs, each row being different from the others, and the rows being numbered from 1 to 16. One witness asked the defendant for No. 10, which read, “Brook., Pitts., Cleve., Phila.,” paid some money, and received a ticket numbered 10,456 in print, with 10 upon it in pencil. Afterwards he saw the defendant, and asked him if combination 10 had won, to which the defendant answered, No. The first exception is to allowing this witness to testify that combination 10 meant the four names in the row numbered 10, and that, as far as he knew, the names signified base-ball clubs. If the jury were not warranted in inferring as much without evidence, we are of opinion that the witness who bought the ticket, and who had been at the place a number of times, might be found by the judge to be qualified to testify to the meaning of the words used by himself and the defendant. Certainly we are far from being able to say that the finding was clearly wrong. Nunes v. Perry, 113 Mass. 274, 276. Commonwealth v. Sturtivant, 117 Mass. 122, 137.

¶2A ruling was asked that there was no evidence warranting a conviction; also that certain specified transactions were wagers, not pools. These were refused, but the judge instructed the jury that he did not suppose all betting was selling pools, defined pools as in Commonwealth v. Perry, 146 Mass. 203, 208, with amplifications, and directed them that, unless they found the defendant was thus engaged in the business of selling pools, they must acquit him. The natural inference from the form of the transaction, the witness selecting a number and paying his money with nothing said as to the defendant’s undertaking, *140would be that it was selling a pool, not making an ordinary bilateral wager. Two of the witnesses said that it was a pool. , It is true that they saw no fund, and did not know of other persons making a wager at the time, but their testimony, if believed, carried conviction as to what the transaction purported, and therefore impliedly was admitted and affirmed by the defendant to be. The elements making up the implication would be difficult to reproduce, and yet there might be no doubt of the meaning understood by all concerned, even if there was not a word spoken.

¶3We discover no error in the trial. Exceptions overruled.

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