Zarate

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction of the crime of forgery. Joseph L. Thing and Charles E. Thing conducted a mercantile business under the name of Thing Bros., in the little town of Tecate, part of which place is in San Diego County and part in the republic of Mexico. On account of the lack of banking facilities in the village, it was the custom of Thing Bros, to issue their checks on a San Diego bank to the people of the place in exchange for cash, the paper then being used in the transaction of business with the outside world. The checks were always drawn by the brothers themselves, one being accustomed to write them by hand, while the other used a typewriter for the purpose. The typewritten paper was drawn from a red and a black ribbon, each of the colors being used, invariably, on a certain and definite portion of each check. Appellant procured one of these typewritten checks in the sum of five dollars, through a third person, paying that amount for it. Next, through a conductor on the railroad running from Tecate to San Diego, he procured both a black and a red typewriter ribbon from the latter place, and also a pad of blank cheeks upon the bank on which Thing…