Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/566

 NOTES OF RECENT CASES the manufacture of similar bread, copying the form of the loaf and later its surface appearance, and placing upon their loaves a blue label similar to that of complainants, bearing the words "Crown Malt." Both plaintiff and defendant were wholesale dealers and disposed of their bread to retailers. It was held that the act of defendants in placing their bread in the hands of retailers who were thus enabled to deceive the public and palm off the bread as being that of complainants, was an unfair competition, al though defendants did not mislead or intend to mislead the retail dealers to whom they sold. It is enough, said the court, to require an injunction if they knowingly place an instrument of fraud in the hands of a retailer, with which he may deceive the public, and in support of this holding the following cases are cited: New England Co. v. Marlborough Co. 168 Mass. 154, 46 N. E. 386, 60 Am. St. Rep. 377; N. K. Fairbank Co. v. Bell Co., 77 Fed. 869, 23 C'. C. A. 554; Hostetter Co. v. Becker (C. C.) 73 Fed. 297; Fairbank v. Luckel, etc. Co., 102 Fed. 327, 42 C. C/A/376; Lever v. Goodwin, 36 Ch. Div. i. WITNESSES (Competency — Criminal Law — Confessions). Mont. — Under the provisions of the Montana Statutes to the effect that all persons who, having organs of sense, can perceive, and perceiving can make known their perceptions to others, may testify as witnesses, it is held in State v. Lu Sing, 85 Pac. 521, that a Chinaman who stated that he did not know the nature of the oath he had taken as a witness, and did not know what kind of an oath was administered in the courts of China, but who also stated he could tell what he knew, and that what he would say would be the truth, was a competent witness.

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This case also contains a rather curious point involving the competency of an admission alleged to have been made by defendant. The police officer who arrested defendant testified that the latter made a number of statements while on the way to the jail. The defendant was a Chinaman and he spoke English very poorly, so that the officer was unable to understand all that defen dant said, but the officer testified that he did understand the defendant's statement "If I kill him, me good man, if I not kill him, no good," and again, " If me no kill him me no good man, and if Tom Sing dead me die happy." It was contended that these portions of the conversation were inadmissible, because the officer was unable to detail the entire conversation. In holding the evidence admissible the court declares that it is not in conflict with the rule that where the state offers only a part of the conversation embodying a confession, the defendant has a right to have the whole of the conversation before the jury, but declares that the great weight of authority and reason favor the proposition that the mere fact that a witness did not hear all of the conver sation or did not understand it all, does not ren der incompetent what he did hear or understand, and in such case the evidence goes to the jury for what it is worth. Westmoreland v. State, 45 Ga., 225; Woolfolk v. State, 85 Ga. 69, n S.E. 814; State v. Elliott, 15 Iowa, 72; State v. Moelchen, 53 Iowa, 310, 5 N. W. 186; State v. Madi son, 47 La. Ann. 30, 16 South, 566; State v. Vallery, 47 La. Ann. 182, 16 South, 745, 49 Am. St. Rep. 363; State v. Daniels, 49 La. Ann. 954, 22 South, 415; Commonwealth v. Pitsinger, no Mass. 101; 3 Wigmore on Evidence, § 2100; Wharton's Criminal Evidence, § 688; People v. Daniels, 105 Cal., 262, 38 Pac. 720; People v. Dice, 120 Cal. 189, 52 Pac. 477.