Continuing Offence

When an offence consumes a great length of time in its perpetration, the question often arises whether it is but a single offence or whether it can be split into a number of indictments. The test is that, if the transaction is set in motion by a single impulse and operated upon by a single uninterrupted force, it forms a continuous act, and hence must be treated as one; Whart. Cr. Law (10th ed.) §§ 27, 931. Thus gas fraudulently drawn from a main pipe for a great space of time constitutes but one offence; L. R. 1 C. C. 172; articles removed at intervals a few minutes apart but by one impulse; 4 C. & P. 217, 386; or when a shaft of coal is opened and quarried, if there be but one tapping of the vein, though it continue several years; 2 C. & P. 705. Nuisances, though usually continuous offences, may be the object of successive prosecutions, if distinct impulses are given at intermittent times. The test is whether the individual acts are prohibited or the course of action which they constitute; Whart. Cr. Law § 27. Cohabitation with more than one woman for a period of time constitutes but one offence under the act of congress of March 22, 1882; In re Snow, 120 U. S. 274, 7 Sup. Ct. 556, 30 L. Ed. 658. The offence of receiving a rebate under the Elkins act is the transaction that the given rebate consummates, and not the units of measurement of the physical thing transported; Standard Oil Co. of Indiana v. U. S., 164 Fed. 376, 90 C. C. A. 364; as to interstate merchandise, it is a single continuing offence, continuously committed in each district through which it is conducted; Armour Packing Co. v. U. S., 209 U. S. 56, 28 Sup. Ct. 428, 52 L. Ed. 681.