Black Mail

Rents reserved, payable in work, grain, and the like. Such rents were called "black mail" (reditus nigri), in distinction from white rents (blanche firmes), which were rents paid in silver. A yearly payment made for security and land about the middle of the sixteenth century, and laid the inhabitants under contribution. Hume, Hist. Eng. vol. 1, p. 473; Id. vol. 2, App. No. 8; Cowell. In common usage the term signifies the obtaining of money by a demand accompanied by threats of prosecution, exposure or injury in case of nonpayment. The corrupt taking under color of office is "extortion." (q. V.)

Rents reserved, payable in work, grain, and the like. Such rents were called black mail (reditus nigri) in distinction from white rents (blanche firmes), which were rents paid in silver. A yearly payment made for security and protection to those bands of marauders who infested the borders of England and Scotland about the middle of the sixteenth century and laid the inhabitants under contribution. Hume, Hist. Eng. vol. i. 473; vol. ii. App. No. 8; Cowell. In common parlance, the term is equivalent to, and synonymous with, extortion — the exaction of money, either for the performance of a duty, the prevention of an injury, or the exercise of an influence. It supposes the service to be unlawful, and the payment involuntary. Not unfrequently it is extorted by threats, or by operating upon the fears or the credulity, or by promises to conceal, or offers to expose the weaknesses, the follies, or the crimes of the victim. Edsall v. Brooks, 17 Abb. Pr. (N. Y.) 226. Threats by defendant to accuse another of a crime, with intent, himself, to commit the crime of extortion, accompanied by success in obtaining money from that other. That such other person was endeavoring to induce defendant to receive money, for the purpose of accusing him of extortion, and so could not have been moved by fear, will not prevent his conviction for an attempt at extortion; People v. Gardner, 144 N. Y. 119, 38 N. E. 1003, 2S L. R. A. 699, 43 Am. St. Rep. 741; under an act declaring it a crime to threaten a person with a criminal prosethreats believed that the person threatened had committed the crime; People v. Eiehler, 75 Hun 2G, 26 X. Y. Bupp. 998; where threats of prosecution for perjury were made maliciously and with intent to compel the one threatened to do an act against his will, the offence is complete; and it is immaterial whether the one threatened was guilty of perjury; People v. Whittemore, 102 Mich. 519, 01 N. W. 13. In a prosecution under an act providing for the punishment of one who, for the purposes of extortion, sends a letter expressing or implying, or adapted to imply, any threat, and the letter threatens to make a charge against the person to whom it is sent, the truth or falsity of the charge is immaterial; People v. Choynski, 95 Cal. 640, 30 Pac. 791; an act making it an offence to accuse one of crime "with intent to extort money," etc., does not cover the case of an owner who demands compensation for property criminally destroyed, and accompanies his demand with a threat to accuse the defendant of the crime, and, where he is indicted for extortion, it is error to charge that it is immaterial whether the accusation made by him was true or false; Mann v. State, 47 Ohio St. 550, 26 N. E. 22G, 11 L. R. A. G5G. A charge of soliciting sexual intercourse with the wife of another is a charge of immoral conduct, which, if true, would tend to disgrace one and subject him to the contempt of society, and threatening to make such charge is black mail; Motsinger v. State, 123 Ind. 498, 24 N. E. 342. On a trial for maliciously threatening to accuse another of burning a building with intent to extort money, evidence of the truth of the charge is inadmissible on the question of malice or of intent, or to impeach the prosecuting witness; Com. v. Buckley, 148 Mass. 27, 18 N. E. 577, 1 L. R. A. 624.

1. In one of its original meanings, this term denoted a tribute paid by English dwellers along the Scottish border to influential chieftains of Scotland, as a condition of securing immunity from raids of marauders and border thieves. were called “black-mail,” (reditus nigri,) in distinction from white rents, (blanche firmes, ) which were rents paid in silver. 3. The extortion of money by threats or overtures towards criminal prosecution or the destruction of a man’s reputation or social standing. In common parlance, the term is equivalent to, and synonymous with, “extortion, ”--the exaction of money, either for the performance of a duty, the prevention of an injury, or the exercise of an influence. It supposes the service to be unlawiul, and the payment involuntary, Not infrequently it is extorted by threats, or by operating upon the fears or the credulity, or by promises to conceal, or offers to expose, the weaknesses, the follies, or thecrimesof thevictim. 26 How. Pr. 431; 17 Abb. Pr. 226.

1. A tribute paid by the counties of England to some^ border from the depredations of the Scotch troopers. 2. Black rents: rents or labor, as distinguished from ■white

A rent or tribute formerly paid by the poorer inhabitants of some of the northern counties of England to some powerful Scottish border chieftain {poienti alicui Scoto limitaneo,) in order to be protected from the depredations of the Scottish border thieves, rievers or moss troopers. Spelman. Protection-rent, or protection money. Scott^s Minstrelsy of Scott. Border f Introd. Sometimes paid to the rievers themselves. Ursk, Inst. b. 4, tit. 4, § 64. The word mxiil in this compound is derived by some from the Fr. maille, a link of mail, or small piece of money. There is better reason, however, for regarding it as a Scotch term, signifying a renty or stated payment, which sense it has in the Scotch burrow meals, or burrow-mealis, (borough rents.) See Burrow-mealis. This makes the whole word synonymous with bkuik rent, in which sense it is used in the old books. Stat, 9 Edw, III. c. 4. Blount. It was called black mail from its being generally paid in baser money or in provisions, {csre vel opsoniis,) instead of silver. Spelman, Termes de la ley,