Page:Revised Codes of the State of North Dakota 1895.pdf/1344

§§ 7498-7444 4. Forgery in the fourth degree, by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one and not exceeding two years, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year.

§ 7438. Uttering forged instrument or coin. Every person who, with intent to defraud, utters or publishes as true, any forged, altered or counterfeited instrument, or any counterfeit gold or silver coin, the forging, altering or counterfeiting of which is herein before declared to be punishable, knowing such instrument or coin to be forged, altered or counterfeited, is guilty of forgery in the same degree as if he had forged, altered or counterfeited the instrument or coin so uttered, except as in the next section specified.

§ 7439. Exception. Receipt in good faith. If it appears on the trial of the information or indictment, that the accused received such forged or counterfeited instrument or 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.

§ 7440. Signing own as name of another. 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.

§ 7441. Indorsing own as name of another. 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.

§ 7442. Erasures and obliterations. 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.

§ 7443. Writing and written defined. 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.

§ 7444. Fictitious name to instrument. 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. 1310