Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/788

 780 FEDEEAL EEPOETER. �The indictment is founded on section 5486 of the Eevised Statutes. �The first count charges the defendant with wrongfuUy with- holding from one Andrew J. Henderson, a pensioner of the United States, certain moneys which came to the defendant as an agent and attorney of the said Henderson. �The second and third counts charge him with being instru- mental in prosecuting the claim of Henderson for a pension, and, being so instrumental in the prosecution of the claim, withholding wrongfuUy from him certain moneys of the pen- sioner. �The first question made is as to the validity of the counts in the indictment upon which he was found guilty. �It is sufficient ordinarily, in cases of a misdemeanor, to allege .he offence in the language of the statute ; and to state that the defendant was instrumental in presenting the claim of Henderson for a pension, without setting forth the partic- ular circumstanoes in which that instrumentality consisted, was ail that was requisite in this case. �The main offence, if any, was in wrongfuUy withholding money from the pensioner. The law punishes a person be- cause, being instrumental in the prosecution of a claim for a pension, he is presumed to bave a special connection with the circumstanoes which constitute the gravamen of the charge. And it seems, for that reason, to declare that no person who bas this connection with the prosecution of a claim shall be permitted unlawfuUy to withhold money from the pensioner. �There is another question in the case growing out of the legislation of congress as to the description of the offence. The thirteenth section of the act of July 4, 1864, declared that no agent or attorney should demand or receiye any greater compensation than that prescribed in the act ; and it also declared, in language somewhat similar to a portion of section 5485 of the Eevised Statutes, that if an agent or attorney wrongfuUy withheld from a pensioner any part of a pension or claim allowed he was to be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and punished as prescribed in the statute. It will be seen that in this section, while the "withholding" fol- ��� �