Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The words 'wholesale dealers' are as apt to embrace corporations here as they are in § 2, requiring such dealers to pay certain taxes. We have no doubt that they were intended to embrace them. The words 'any person' in the penal clause are as broad as 'wholesale dealers' in the part prescribing the duties. U.S. Rev. Stat. § 1, U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 3. It is impossible to believe that corporations were intentionally excluded. They are as much within the mischief aimed at as private persons, and as capable of a 'wilful' breach of the law. ”

“ And, if we free our minds from the notion that criminal statutes must be construed by some artificial and conventional rule, the natural inference, when a statute prescribes two independent penalties, is that it means to inflict them so far as it can, and that, if one of them is impossible, it does not mean, on that account, to let the defendant escape. ”

“ It is that § 5 applies in express terms to corporations, and gives the court discretionary power to punish by either fine or imprisonment, or both; whereas, in § 6, both punishments are imposed in all cases, and corporations are not mentioned; that it is impossible to imprison a corporation, and that the statute warrants no sentence that does not comply with its terms. ”