Wolfle

Appellant was convicted of using the mails to defraud in violation of section 215 cf the Criminal Code (18 USCA § 338). The only questions pressed on the argument are the correctness of the rulings of the court on the admission of the testimony of the witness Grace Snyder, and in denying a continuance at the conclusion of the testimony by reason of the illness of the appellant. The witness Grace Snyder testified that the defendant dictated to her a letter to his wife; that she took the dictation down in shorthand; and that the letter contained the following reference to the Cantu Mine: “I am going to break in and whenever I do, I am going to rob every last one of them blind.” Several objections were made to the introduction of this testimony, but the only one pressed in the argument is the objection that it is a privileged communication between husband and wife.

We think it clear that the statement of the husband to his stenographer is not privileged even though it was intended to be communicated to his wife. The law protecting a spouse from the testimony of the other spouse does not extend to oral communications to third persons, even if intended for transmission to the other…