of the statute was taken for granted, and hence the mere assumption which was indulged in when deciding the Cochran case should not now prevent a determination of the significance of the language of the statute. As the report of the Cochran case indicates that the premise relied on is true, we come to consider the meaning of the section as an original question.

The report to the Comptroller, in which the entries were charged to have been false, and to have been made with the intent to deceive that officer as an agent appointed to examine, etc., was clearly one made under the provisions of Rev. Stat., § 5211, which reads as follows:

"Every association shall make to the Comptroller of the Currency not less than five reports during each year, according to the form which may be prescribed by him, verified by the oath or affirmation of the president or cashier of such association, and attested by the signature of at least three of the directors. Each such report shall exhibit, in detail and under appropriate heads, the resources and liabilities of the association at the close of business of any past day by him specified; and shall be transmitted to the Comptroller within five days after the receipt of a request or requisition therefor from him."

The authority conferred by this section upon the Comptroller is but one among the comprehensive powers with which he is endowed by the statute for the purpose of examining and supervising the operations of national banks, preventing and detecting violations of law on their part, appointing receivers in case of necessity, etc. From the nature of these powers it would seem clear that the Comptroller is an officer or agent of the United States, expressly as well as impliedly clothed with authority to examine into the affairs of national banking associations, and therefore a false entry made in a report to him is directly embraced in the provision of Rev. Stat., § 5209. But it is argued while this may be abstractly true, it is not so when the provision of Rev. Stat., § 5240 is considered, conferring power upon the

Comptroller, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, to appoint suitable agents to make an examination of the affairs of every national banking association. Because of this power the contention is that the words "any agent appointed to examine the affairs of any such bank" should be construed as embracing only the subordinate agents whom the Comptroller is authorized to appoint. But to so hold, we think, would do violence to the text of § 5209, and conflict with its context, and would, besides, frustrate the plain purpose which the section as a whole was intended to accomplish, especially if it be considered in the light of cognate provisions of the statute. We say the first, because the particular words of the text relied upon, "any agent appointed to examine," etc., are all-embracing, and cannot reasonably be held to exclude the Comptroller, the principal agent endowed by the statute with the power to examine national banks. Indeed, the words "any agent" would seem to have been used in the broadest sense for the express purpose of excluding the possibility of the contention now made. Nor does the fact that the section of the Revised Statutes empowering the Comptroller to call for reports from national banks is contained in a section subsequent to the one which embodies the provision authorizing the Comptroller to appoint agents to examine, give force to the contention that the Comptroller cannot be embraced by the words "any agent." The provision in question was originally contained in the act of 1864, which moreover forbade certain acts in the transaction of the affairs of national banks, empowered the Comptroller of the Currency to exercise supervisory power, to call for reports from the associations and to bring into play other authority substantially as found in the law as now existing. This was followed by the provision giving to the Comptroller the right to appoint subordinate examiners, the whole being concluded by a section containing provisions which are now substantially embodied in Rev. Stat., § 5209. It is apparent that such provisions embraced acts.

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forbidden and matters regulated by previous sections, including the reports to be made by the associations to the Comptroller and the examination of books and papers by the agents appointed by the Comptroller. The intention cannot be reasonably imputed of punishing an intent to deceive a subordinate of the Comptroller by means of false entries in a report required to be made directly to the Comptroller and for his information and guidance, and yet at the same time not to punish the intent to deceive the very officer to whom the report was to be made. Including the reports to be made to the Comptroller in the comprehensive grouping of the section excludes the conception that such officer was not considered as embraced in the words "any officer appointed," etc. But the argument is that, however cogent may be the considerations just stated, they are here inapplicable, because the statute is a criminal one, requiring to be strictly construed. The principle is clementary, but the application here sought to be made is a mistaken one. The rule of strict construction does not require that the narrowest technical meaning be given to the words employed in a criminal statute in disregard of their context and in frustration of the obvious legislative intent. United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 385. In that case, answering the contention that penal laws are to be construed strictly, the court said (p. 395):

.

"The object in construing penal, as well as other statutes, is to ascertain the legislative intent. The words must not be narrowed to the exclusion of what the legislature intended to embrace; but that intention must be gathered from the words, and they must be such as to leave no room for a reasonable doubt upon the subject. The rule

of strict construction is not violated by permitting the words of the statute to have their full meaning, or the more extended of two meanings, as the wider popular instead of the more narrow technical one; but the words should be taken in such a sense, bent neither one way nor the other, as will best manifest the legislative intent."

It is to be observed that the rule thus stated affords no ground for extending a penal statute beyond its plain meaning. But it inculcates that a meaning which is within the text and within its clear intent is not to be departed from because, by resorting to a narrow and technical interpretation of particular words, the plain meaning may be distorted and the obvious purpose of the law be frustrated. Bolles v. Outing Co., 175 U. S. 262, 265, and especially United States v. Union Supply Company, decided this term, ante, p. 50.

Indeed, the aptness of the application of the principle just stated to the case in hand is well illustrated by the following considerations. If by distorting the rule of strict construction we were to construe the words of the statute, "any agent appointed to examine," so as to exclude the Comptroller of the Currency, the principal agent appointed for such purpose, by the same method we should be compelled to adopt the reasoning of the court below and to narrow the statute so as to exclude the intent to deceive by false entries in the report, an agent to whom the report was not to be made and who might not be called upon to examine the same, thus, in effect, as to intent to deceive any agent, destroying the statute. And this impossible conclusion at once serves to point out the correctness of the interpretation of the statute assumed in the Cochran case, that the intent to deceive, for which the statute provides, is an intent to deceive the official agents concerned in overseeing the bank and supervising its operation and the conduct of its business, including, of necessity, the Comptroller of the Currency and the subordinate agents or examiners whom the statute authorized him to appoint.

2. The demurrer.

Where intent is an essential ingredient of a crime it is settled that such intent may be charged in general terms and that the existence of the intent becomes, therefore, a question to be determined by the jury upon a consideration of all the facts and circumstances of the case. Evans v. United

States, 153 U. S. 584. It is, of course, to be conceded that where the facts charged to have been done with criminal intent are of such a nature that on the face of the indictment it must result as a matter of law that the criminal intent could not under any possible circumstances have existed, the charge of such intent, in general terms, would raise no issue of fact proper to go to a jury. It was upon the conception that the facts alleged in the indictment under consideration excluded the possibility under any circumstances of the existence of the particular criminal intent charged, that the court below was led to sustain the demurrer. The court said:

"The indictment also charges that the entries were made with intent to injure and defraud the bank itself, but how this could be does not appear. It is barely possible that some harm might indirectly have come to the bank by the publication of the false report in the vicinity of the place where the bank was located, but this possibility is not sufficient to show the definite intent shown by the statute. The report must have been made with the purpose on the part of those signing it to injure and defraud the bank. The report could not possibly change the actual condition of the bank, and a false report showing a better condition than in fact existed might as readily be a benefit to the bank as a detriment. At all events, the detriment would be merely speculative, insufficient to afford proof of a positive intent to injure and defraud the bank."

But to these views we cannot give our assent. Because the false entries in the report showed the bank to be in a more favorable condition than it was in truth did not justify the conclusion that the entries in the report could under no circumstances have been made with the intent to injure the bank, unless it be true to say that it must follow, as a matter of law, that to falsely state in an official report a bank to be in a better condition than it really is, under every and all circumstances is to benefit and not to injure the bank. But