Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/419

 The jnry had been instructed that the fact had been estàb- lîshed that some person had devised a scheme to defraud, to be eSected through the agency of the post-office. This was mot excepted to. The defendant had, as stated in the charge, made a false statement in respect to the handwriting of the letter and the advertisement. It appears that he had> on two occasions before he was indicted, denied that he wrote those papers. On the trial he testified himself that he did write them, and that he wrete them at the reçLuest of a person who had since died, by copying them from a paper which such person had handed to him, and that he did not deposit them, or cause theoj to be deposited, in any post-office, and had no knowledge as to what became of them after he handed them to such person, and that be had neverhad anyof theanswers to the advertisements. Other evidence vras given on both eidea in reference to the matters so testified to by the defend- ant. This throws light on the meaning of the word "unex- plained" nsed in the charge, in connection with the portion 80 excepted to. The jury, to find the verdict they did, must bave believed that the defendant's attempted explanation waa untrue, and amounted to no explanation. If it was, the case under such circumstances, unexplained, etood in a worse posi- tion for the defendant than if he had not attempted an explanation. In addition, there waô the false statement by the defendant as to the handwriting of the letter. Upon ail this, and on ail the charge, what the court said in the point îii question, when modiaed, ainounted tô no more than this: that the fact that the letter was in the handwriting of : the defendant was, in view of bis previous deniai and of bis false explanation at the trial, evidence to be considered on the question of whether he mailed the letter, and evidence from which, in connection with other evidence in the case, the jury might infer that he mailed it. �The bill of exceptions expressly Btates that the court mod- ified the charge, and that the charge, as secondly given, is a modification ; hence the modified charge cannot be held to be the same as the original charge, and to mean the same thing. The modlQed charge does not say that the mere fact that the ����