Rufus Wheeler Peckham

“ You will find upon looking at the report made to the comptroller that it contains a heading called 'Overdrafts.' This heading is 'Overdrafts,' plainly and simply, and without more,-'Overdrafts.' This is the form the comptroller has prescribed, and which it was the duty of the defendant to follow, and to enter correctly and truthfully whenever he made an entry in said report with regard to the condition of the bank as to overdrafts. ”

“ If defendant rightly did this,-that is, if, in so doing, he made a report to the comptroller of the true condition of the bank,-he did not then make a false entry in these particulars. But if the entry in reporting the overdraft that day as $2,948.38, instead of $23,413.38, was not a truthful entry, then it would naturally follow that the entry in the loans and discounts of said $20,465 of overdrafts was also not a truthful entry, for this sum of $20,465 of overdrafts could not have been truthfully entered in both overdrafts and loans and discounts. ”

“ The charge of the learned judge substantially took away this defense, and held the plaintiff in error guilty if he knowingly and willfully placed the alleged overdrafts under the heading of 'Loans and Discounts,' a fact about which there was no dispute, ignoring thereby the right of the plaintiff in error to have the jury pass upon the question whether they had been arranged for in good faith as demand loans. ”