Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

FORGERY

508

FORFEIT

will of the losing party,) and that the property is either transferred to another or resumed by the original grantor. To incur a penalty; to become liable to the payment of a sum of money, as the conse quence of a certain act. FORFEITABLE. Liable to be forfeited; subject to forfeiture for non-user, neglect, crime, etc. FORFEITURE. 1. A punishment an nexed by law to some illegal act or negligence in the owner of lands, tenements, or heredita ments, whereby he loses all his interest there in, and they go to the party injured as a rec ompense for the wrong which he alone, or the public together with himself, hath sus tained. 2 Bl. Comm. 267. 2. The loss of land by a tenant to his lord, as the consequence of some breach of fidelity. 1 Steph. Comm. 166. 3. The loss of lands and goods to the state, as the consequence of crime. 4 Bl. Comm. 381, 387; 4 Steph. Comm. 447,452; 2 Kent, Comm. 385; 4 Kent, Comm. 426. 4. The loss of goods or chattels, as a punish ment for some crime or misdemeanor in the party forfeiting, and as a compensation for the offense and injury committed against him to whom they are forfeited. 2 Bl. Comm. 420. It should be noted that "forfeiture" is not an identical or convertible term with "confiscation." Tbe latter is the consequence of the former. For feiture is the result which the law attaches as an immediate and necessary consequence to the illegal acts of the individual; but confiscation implies the action of the state; and property, although it may be forfeited, cannot be said to be confiscated until the government has formally claimed or taken pos session of it. 5. The loss of office by abuser, non-user, or refusal to exercise it. 6. The loss of a corporate franchise or char ter in consequence of some illegal act, or of malfeasance or non-feasance. 7. The loss of the right to life, as the conse quence of the commission of some crime to which the law has affixed a capital penalty. 8. The incurring a liability to pay a definite sum of money as the consequence of violating the provisions of some statute, or refusal to comply with some requirement of law. 9. A thing or sum of money forfeited. Something imposed as a punishment for an offense or delinquency. The word in this sense is frequently associated with the word "penalty." FORFEITURE OF A BOND. A fail are to perform the condition on which the

obligor was to be excused from the penalty in the bond. FORFEITURE OF MARRIAGE. A penalty incurred by a ward in chivalry who married without the consent or against the will of the guardian. See DUPLEX VALOR MARITAGII. FORFEITURE OF SILK, supposed to lie in the docks, used, in times when its im portation was prohibited, to be proclaimed each term in the exchequer. FORFEITURES ABOLITION ACT. Another name for the felony act of 1870, abolishing forfeitures for felony in England. FORGABULUM, or FORGAVEL. A quit-rent; a small reserved rent in money. Jacob. FORGE. To fabricate, construct, or pre pare one thing in imitation of another thing, with the intention of substituting the false for the genuine, or otherwise deceiving and defrauding by the use of the spurious article. To counterfeit or make falsely. Especially, to make a spurious written instrument with the intention of fraudulently substituting it for another, or of passing it off as genuine; or to fraudulently alter a genuine instrument to another's prejudice; or to sign another person's name to a document, with a deceit ful and fraudulent intent. To forge (a metaphorical expression, borrowed from the occupation of the smith) means, properly speaking, no more than to make or form, but in our law it is always taken in an evil sense. 2 East, P. C. p. 852, c. 19, § 1. To forge is to make in the likeness of something else; to counterfeit is to make in imitation of something else, with a view to defraud by passing the false copy for genuine or original. Both words, "forged" and "counterfeited, n convey the idea of similitude. 42 Me. 392. In common usage, however, forgery is almost always predicated of some private instrument or writing, as a deed, note, will, or a signature; and counterfeiting denotes the fraudulent imitation of coined or paper money or some substitute there for. FORGERY. In criminal law. The falsely making or materially altering, with intent to defraud, any writing which, if gen uine, might apparently be of legal efficacy oi the foundation of a legal liability. 2 Bish. dim. Law, § 523. The fraudulent making and alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another man's right. 4 Bl. Comm. 247. See FORGE. Forgery, at common law, denotes a false making, (which includes every alteration or addition to a true instrument;) a making, malo animo* of any

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