My Lords, it will be allowed me that accuracy is at least as necessary
for an indictment as to proceedings in the civil Courts; and your
Lordships cannot have forgotten the late decision upon the application
of the Bankrupt Act, when it was found that money belonging to creditors
could not be lodged in the Bank of Dundee, in respect, the Act declares,
that the bankrupt funds recovered should be lodged in a bank. And if the
Bank of Dundee, my Lords, was held in that judgment not to be a bank
under the meaning of the Act, with what propriety could your Lordships
determine in a criminal case that their notes were bank-notes? No case
can be figured more precisely in point; and if your Lordships approve of
that decision, you will necessarily find that the note on the table is
improperly described, and cannot be used in evidence.
I might safely admit, my Lords, that if this note had been described as
a five-pound bank-note of a certain company, supposing it had been a
bank-note of Sir William Forbes & Company, that this would have been a
good description, for then it would have appeared by the indictment that
the writing meant was a promissory note of that company. But from its
being termed generally a bank-note, I could never suppose that it was
not a note issued by one of the public banks, as that is the description
that applies to no other species of document known in this country. For
these reasons I hope your Lordships will not allow any questions
concerning this paper to be put to the witness.
Lord HAILES--When I had the honour to serve the Crown as a
depute-advocate, I learned from a most eminent judge, Lord Tinwald,
Justice-Clerk, from whom I derived much instruction in the principles of
law, that the note of a private banking company could not be termed in
law a bank-note, nor could it be considered in any respect as money. On
one occasion he obliged me to correct an indictment where I had fallen
into the same error which I perceive here. The word bank-note, in legal
acceptation, is applied exclusively to the notes issued by a bank
instituted by Royal Charter, and I remember well the case alluded to by
the Dean of Faculty, which was determined on the same principles. I am
therefore clear for sustaining the objection.
Lord ESKGROVE--My Lords, I am clearly of the opinion that has been given
by my honourable brother. The promissory note of a private banking
company is not held in the language of our law to be a bank-note, and
therefore I am for sustaining the objection.
The LORD JUSTICE-CLERK--I suppose there are none of your Lordships of a
different opinion? The Lords therefore sustain the objection.
The Court then pronounced the following interlocutor:--
The Lord Justice-Clerk and Lords Commissioners of Justiciary having
considered the objection, with the answers thereto, they sustain
the objection to this piece of evidence libelled on, and refuse to
allow the same to be produced.
ROBT. M‘QUEEN, I.P.D.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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