The American Law Journal and Miscellaneous Repertory Volume 3 - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1810 Excerpt: ... shipped, landed or unladen, since it was taken on board, except as shall have been specified in the said report or manifest, and pursuant to permits as aforesaid." It appears to me then, that the very words of this proviso, in the strict construction contended for, do not relate merely, and cannot reasonably, or on any rule of construction be confined, to the goods which shall happen to be found on board. The law certainly could not be so construed, with any rational attention to the intent of the legislature. And it is also a rule in the interpretation of all statutes, (penal as well as others) that they shall be so construed as to effectuate the intention of the legislature. It requires no further or other proof to satisfy the collector or court that these goods were not at the time of discovery " unshipped" &c. than that of their being actually on board. But proof is expressly required, when it is discovered that " the goods on board do not agree with the manifest" to satisfy the collector or court that not only these goods, but that " no part whatever of the goods, Sec. of such ship or vessel, has been landed," &c. clearly, in my opinion, embracing all other goods of the ship, and throwing (from the necessity of such suspicious cases) the proof on the party, that no goods, others as well as those discovered, had been landed, &c. If this construction is deemed strict, it is certainly warranted by the doctrine contended for as to penal statutes. But it appears to me not to be a rigid or forced construction. It is one perfectly in conformity with the rule before mentioned, to wit, that " the construction shall be such as not to suffer the statute to be eluded." And nothing could open a wider field for frauds and evasions, than that the very fact which crea...