Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/246

 232 FEDERAL REFOBTEB. �scope as not to cover an act which is in fact illegal, though there be no premedited attempt to perpetrate a fraud by means of an invoice false in the sense that it is designedly fraudaient. �The customs laws throughout are necessarily exceedingly strin- gent, and in more than one instance they forbid the commission of acts which, ii committed, though simply mala prohibita, involve a for- feiture ; and section 2864 seems to embrace the case of an entry knowingly made by means of any invoice which does not contain a true statement of all the particulars required by law. �On the whole, my conclusion is that the law was violated in making the deduction of 2^ per cent, for dust from the cost or value of the malt, and that therefore the property was subject to forfeiture. I may add that this conclusion is not expressed without some hesitation, since the duty on the amount of the deduction for dust would be quite trifling in amount, and since the right of forfeit- ure on the part of the government seems to rest rather upon techni- cal grounds than otherwise; and I do not fail to appreciate the fact that the consequences to the claimant are serious. But after consid- ering with care the question upon which the case must turn, I have been unable to perceive any way of escape from the resuit stated, con- sistent with the letter, spirit, and meaning of the statute regulating the collection of duties upon imports. ���United States v, Stone. (Circuit Court, W. D. Tenneaase. Juae 28, 1881.) �1. CniMiNAii Law — Wbecks— Dbpbedationb on Vbssels in Disthess — Ebv. St. i 5358— "PiillNDBB, Steai, or Destkot" Oonstbued. �Section 5358 of the Revised Statutes is a comprehensive statute, affording extraordinary protection to property within the admiralty and maritime juris- diction of the United States, by creating and punishing a substantive and dis- inct ofEence for all acts of spoliation upon the property belonging to a veasel wrecked or in distress. It is not alone the crime of larceny that is punished by the statute, but any act of depredation, whether it be of the character that would be piracy if committed on the high seas, robbery, or other forcible tak- ing, theft, trespass, malicious mischief, or any fraiidulent and criminal breach of trust if committed on land of property solely under the protection of the common or statutory law of the state within which the ofEence is committed. And no specifie intent, as in larceny, is necessary to constitute the ollcnce. Any intent except that of restoring the goods to the vessel or owner is unlaw- ful, under this statute, and whether conceived at the timeof the taking orsub- sequently thereto, if carried out by a wrongf ul appropriation or destruction of the property, the ofEence is complete. Nor is it matorial whether the property is taken from ofE the wrecked vessel itsclf, or out of the water while floating ��� �