Section I. Frauds

(a) Practised upon the individual

As we have seen, the common law, in giving its protection to the private citizen as such, regarded as felonious those acts of dishonesty which took the form of a physical interference with the property itself, against the will of its owner. For frauds of a personal character whereby a man was induced by deceit or lies to part with his ownership of money or of other property the common law provided no criminal punishment; as, for example, where a man tricked another by some sleight of hand or by some false statement about the material or quality of some article which he was selling. Thus, when A was charged with obtaining money from B by falsely stating that C had sent him to receive it for his use, Holt, C.J., said: ‘Shall we indict one for making a fool of another?’ and bade the prosecutor to have recourse to a civil action.

(b) Practised upon the public

Where, however, the dishonest activity was of a sort which aimed at defrauding such members of the public as a whole who might come within its reach, then because of its generally injurious character it was treated by the common law as a crime (although only in the degree of a misdemeanour), in any instance in which any particular member of the public suffered by it. False statements without more were held not to be enough, and some misleading device in a permanent form was needed, such as false weights, measures, trade-marks, loaded dice, marked playing cards or even unwholesome food. Thus in the case mentioned in the preceding paragrapb. the court stated that it was ‘not indictable unless he came with false tokens; playing with false dice is, for that is such a cheat as a person of ordinary capacity cannot discover’.