Page:1887 Compiled Laws of Dakota Territory.pdf/1140

§§ 6775-6781 coin from another, in good faith, and for a good and valuable consideration, without any circumstances to justify a suspicion of its being forged or counterfeited, the jury may find the defendant guilty of forgery in the fourth degree.

§ 6775. Every person who, with intent to defraud, makes or subscribes any instrument in his own name, intended to create, increase, discharge, defeat or diminish any pecuniary obligation, right or interest, or to transfer or affect any property whatever, and utters or passes such instrument, under the pretense that it is the act of another who bears the same name, is guilty of forgery in the same degree as if he had forged the instrument of a person bearing a different name from his own.

§ 6776. Every person who, with intent to defraud, indorses any negotiable instrument in his own name, and utters or passes such instrument, under the fraudulent pretense that it is indorsed by another person who bears the same name, is guilty of forgery in the same degree as if he had forged the indorsement of a person bearing a different name from his own.

§ 6777. The total or partial erasure or obliteration of any instrument or writing, with intent to defraud, by which any pecuniary obligation, or any right, interest or claim to property is or is intended to be created, increased, discharged, diminished or in any manner affected, is forgery in the same degree as the false alteration of any part of such instrument or writing.

§ 6778. Every instrument partly printed and partly written, or wholly printed with a written signature thereto, and every signature of an individual, firm or corporation, or of any officer of such body, and every writing purporting to be such signature, is a writing or a written instrument, within the meaning of the provisions of this chapter.

§ 6779. The false making or forging of an evidence of debt purporting to have been issued by any corporation and bearing the pretended signature of any person as an agent or officer of such corporation, is forgery in the same degree as if such person was at the time an officer or agent of such corporation; notwithstanding such person may never have been an officer or agent of such corporation, or notwithstanding there never was any such person in existence.

§ 6780. Larceny is the taking of personal property accomplished by fraud or stealth, and with intent to deprive another thereof.

§ 6781. One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person who is not entitled thereto, without having first made such effort to find the owner and restore the property to him as the circumstances render reasonable and just, is guilty of larceny.