registered letters to the postmaster at the office at which they were originally mailed, with the word 'Fraudulent' plainly written or stamped upon the outside thereof; and all such lettèrs so returned to such postmasters shall be by them returned to the writers thereof, under such regulations as the Postmaster General may prescribe. By the act of March 2, 1895, c. 191, this section was "extended and made applicable to all letters or other matter sent by mail." 26 Stat. 465; 28 Stat. 963, 964.

"SEC. 4041. The Postmaster General may, upon evidence satisfactory to him that any person or company is engaged in conducting any lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme for the distribution of money or of any real or personal property by lot, chance, or drawing of any kind, or that any person or company is conducting any other scheme for obtaining money or property of any kind through the mails by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, forbid the payment by any postmaster to said person or company of any postal money orders drawn to his or its order, or in his or its favor, or to the agent of any such person or company, whether such agent is acting as an individual or as a firm, bank, corporation, or association of any kind, and may provide by regulation for the return to the remitters of the sums named in such money orders. 26 Stat. 465, 466, c. 908. "SEC. 1782. No Senator, Representative or Delegate, after his election and during his continuance in office, and no head of a Department, or other officer or clerk in the employ of the Government, shall receive or agree to receive any compensation whatever, directly or indirectly, for any services rendered, or to be rendered, to any person, either by himself or another, in relation to any proceeding, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest, or other matter or thing in which the United States is a party, or directly or indirectly interested, before any Department, court martial, bureau, officer, or any civil, military, or naval commission whatever. Every person offending against this section shall be deemed guilty of a mis

demeanor, and shall be imprisoned not more than two years, and fined not more than ten thousand dollars, and shall, moreover, by conviction therefor, be rendered forever thereafter incapable of holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the Government of the United States." 13 Stat. 123, c. 119. The plaintiff in error was indicted in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri for a violation of section 1782, the offense being alleged to have been committed at St. Louis. The accused was found guilty, and on writ of error the judgment was reversed by this court and a new trial ordered, upon the ground, among others, that according to the facts disclosed in that case the offense charged was not committed in the State of Missouri where the accused was tried. Burton v. United States, 196 U. S. 283.

Subsequently, the defendant was tried under a new indictment (the present one) charging him with certain violations of section 1782. The indictment contained eight counts. Stating the case now only in a general way, the first, second, fourth, sixth and eighth counts charged, in substance, that the defendant, a Senator of the United States, had agreed to receive compensation, namely, the sum of $2,500, for services to be rendered by him for the Rialto Grain and Securities Company, a corporation (to be hereafter called the Rialto Company), in relation to a proceeding, matter and thing, in which the United States was interested, before the Post Office Department, those counts differing only as to the nature of the interest, which the United States had in such proceeding, matter and thing; some of the counts alleging that the United States was directly, others that it was indirectly, interested in such proceeding, matter and thing. The third, fifth and seventh counts charged that the defendant did receive compensation to the amount of $500 for the services alleged to have been so rendered by him, those three counts differing only as to the nature of the interest, whether direct or indirect, which the United States had in the alleged proceeding, matter and thing before the Post Office Department.

The defendant demurred to each count. The Government, at that stage of the prosecution, dismissed the indictment as to the fourth and fifth counts and the court overruled the demurrer as to all the other counts. The accused filed a plea in bar to the third and seventh counts. To that plea the Government filed an answer, to which we will advert hereafter. A demurrer to that answer was overruled and, defendant declining to plead further, the plea in bar was denied. He was then arraigned, tried and found guilty on the first, second, third, sixth, seventh and eighth counts. No judgment or sentence was pronounced on the first, second and eighth counts, because they covered the transaction and offense mentioned in the sixth count. And as the third count covered the transaction and offense embraced by the seventh count, no judgment or sentence was pronounced on it.

On the sixth count the defendant was sentenced to be imprisoned for six months in the county jail and to pay a fine of $2,000; on the seventh, to be imprisoned for six months in the county jail and fined $500. It was declared or recited in the judgment on each of those counts that the accused, by his conviction, "is rendered forever hereafter incapable of holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the Government of the United States."

It will be well to bring out fully the allegations of the two counts upon which the sentences were based. They will show the nature of the proceeding, matter or thing before the Post Office Department, in respect of which the defendant was indicted.

The sixth count alleged that on the eighteenth day of November, 1902, the defendant was a Senator of the United States from the State of Kansas, having been theretofore elected for a term of six years expiring on the fourth day of March, 1907, and the Rialto Company was a corporation engaged in the business of buying, selling and dealing in grain and securities, having its principal offices at the city of St. Louis, Missouri; that before and on the above day there was pending before

the Post Office Department of the United States and before the then Postmaster General of the said United States a certain proceeding in which the United States was then indirectly interested, for determining the question whether that corporation was engaged in conducting a scheme for obtaining money through the mails of the said United States, by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, made by the said corporation, and whether the said Postmaster General should instruct the postmaster at the post office at St. Louis, the same then being a post office at which registered letters were then arriving, directed to the said corporation, to return all such letters to the postmasters at the several post offices at which they were or should thereafter be originally mailed, with the word "fraudulent" plainly written or stamped upon the outside thereof, to be by such postmasters returned to the writers thereof under the regulations of the said Post Office Department, and in the same manner to dispose of all other letters and matter sent by mail to the said post office directed to the said corporation, "all of which the said Postmaster General might then have lawfully done, upon evidence satisfactory to him that the said corporation was engaged in conducting such a scheme to defraud as that in this count mentioned; and, further, that before and on the day in this count first aforesaid the facts pertaining to the questions in this count mentioned were under investigation by the said Post Office Department and the said Postmaster General and on that day were still undetermined by the said Postmaster General. And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present, that the said Joseph Ralph Burton, Senator, as in this count of this indictment aforesaid, on the said eighteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and two, after his said election as such Senator, and during his continuance in office as such Senator, at St. Louis, aforesaid, in the Division and District aforesaid, then well knowing the proceedings in this count mentioned, in which the United States was then indirectly interested, to be,

as it then still was, pending as last aforesaid, before the said Post Office Department and the said Postmaster General and undetermined by the said Postmaster General, and then well knowing the character of that proceeding, and that the said United States was then indirectly interested in the same proceeding as last aforesaid, and then well knowing all the premises in this count set forth, unlawfully did agree with the said Rialto Grain and Securities Company, corporation as aforesaid, by and through its officers, agents and attorneys, to receive directly from that corporation through its officers, agents and attorneys, certain other compensation, to wit, the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars lawful money of the said United States, for certain services to be rendered by him, the said Joseph Ralph Burton, to the said corporation, in relation to the last-mentioned proceeding in which the said United States was then indirectly interested as aforesaid, before the said Post Office Department and before the said Postmaster General, while the same proceeding was and should still be pending before the said Post Office Department and the said Postmaster General and still undetermined by the said Postmaster General, and after his the said Joseph Ralph Burton's said election as such Senator, and during his continuance in office as such Senator-that is to say, services consisting of his the said Joseph Ralph Burton's appearing before the said Post Office Department and before the said Postmaster General, the Chief Post Office Inspector, and the Assistant Attorney General for said Post Office Department, and other officers of said Post Office Department, as an agent of and attorney for the said corporation, and obtaining information for said corporation concerning said proceeding in this count mentioned, in which the United States was then indirectly interested, and by the influence of his presence and of his office as such Senator, and by statements, representations and persuasion, inducing the said Postmaster General to believe that the said corporation was not conducting any such scheme to defraud as that last above mentioned, and to