Norcross

These cases were argued and submitted together. All of them depend upon the same facts, concerning which there is no substantial dispute; indeed, most of the facts are expressly agreed to. Norcross was at the times mentioned in the record, and still is, secretary of the Western Fuel Company, a corporation, and as such was and is in possession of all of the records, books, and papers of that company which were not destroyed by the great fire in San Francisco of April 18, 1906.

The record shows that at the November, 1912, term of the court below, two indictments were presented and filed against certain named individuals charging them with having entered into a certain conspiracy with divers other persons whose names were unknown to the grand jurors, “under the guise and name” of the said Western Fuel Company, to defraud the United States out of a large part of the import duties on coal imported and brought into this country by the fuel company directly and through other persons, firms, and corporations, by making and causing to be made false weights and false and fraudulent returns of weights of such importations, and in various other ways specifically set out in the indictments,…