commenced after the expiration of the articles, they may be inspected for the purpose of ascertaining, whether they would apply to the subsequent service. (1) Upon the same principle, in an action for the non-delivery of goods, if the contract is proved by parol evidence, and it should appear that the parties made a contract on unstamped paper, the Court may inspect the *instrument, to see whether it applies to the goods, which are the subject of the action; and if they are not included in the contract, the parol evidence would be properly admitted. (2) So, a written agreement may be recovered in an action of trover, though unstamped ; (3) and, in such an action, it will not be necessary to give notice to the other party to produce the agreement. (4) So, in an action for money lent, where the plaintiff proved, that he had advanced the money to the defendant, who gave him a note for the amount on unstamped paper, and the defence was, that he had been induced to give the note in a state of intoxication, without having received any part of the money, Lord Ellenborough, C. J. held, that the note might be inspected by the jury, as a contemporary writing, to prove or disprove the fraud imputed to the plaintiff. (5) A paper, purporting to be a bill of exchange or pronissory note, may be given in evidence, though unstamped, to support an indictment for forgery, or for uttering with a knowledge of the forgery; (6) for," the stamp acts being revenue laws, and not intended to effect the crime. of forgery, cannot alter the law respecting it; the stamp is not, properly speaking, any part of the instrument, but merely a mark impressed on the paper, to denote the (1) R. v Pendleton, 15 East, 449. Leach Cr. C. 292. 2 East, P. C. 955. S. C. Lee's case, 1784, I Leach Cr. * 400 section of which exempts from stamps only such orders for the payment of money, as are drawn on a banker residing within ten miles of the place where the order is made, and the nineteenth section provides that no bill, note, draft, &c. shall be pleaded or given in evidence in any court, or admitted in any court to be good, useful, or available in law or equity, unless they are written on paper duly stamped. This point was reserved at the trial, and the case was afterwards argued before the Judges in the Exchequer-Chamber; when the *objection taken on the part of the prisoner was, first, that which has been stated, namely, that the draft in question was not a draft for the payment of money, within the meaning of the stat. 7 G. 3. c. 50. s. 1. and, secondly, that the indictment, which averred that the draft was in force at the time of the secreting, had not been proved, as from the want of a stamp the draft had never been available. The opinion of the judges was not publicly declared but the prisoner received a pardon for the offence charged in the indictment; and he was afterwards tried (1) on the second section of the same act, which makes it a capital offence for any person to rob any mail of a letter or packet, or to steal or to take any letter from any mail, or from any place for the receipt of letters, &c. It was objected at the second trial, that the draft, before mentioned, being on unstamped paper, could not be received in evidence as a medium to shew that the prisoner had stolen the letter: but the Court overruled the objection, being of opinion, "that the draft, though unstamped, might be admitted in evidence. for collateral purposes, though not for the purpose of recovering the money mentioned in it, and the evidence was accordingly received." Here the paper was not offered in evidence as it was on the former trial, as a draft for the payment of money, but merely as a paper contained in the letter, and the fact of the prisoner hav (1) 3 Bos. & Pull. 315. And this part of the case is reported in 1 Eart PL. C. addenda, xvii. 54571 * 402 ing this paper in his possession was evidence against him of his having stolen the letter, in which it was contained. An objection, similar to that which was taken on the former trial in the last case, was again made in the ease of The King v. Gillson. (1) The indictment was for feloniously setting fire to a certain house with intent to defraud an insurance company; at the trial, a policy of, insurance was given in evidence on the part of the pros* 403 ecution, by *which the prisoner's goods, in a house there described, were insured against fire, and upon this policy a memorandum was indorsed, stating that the goods insured had been removed from the house described in the policy to another house mentioned in the memorandum, in which last-mentioned house the prisoner was charged with having committed the felony; the policy was properly stamped, but the memorandum had no stamp; and the objection taken for the prisoner was, that in support of the charge it was essentially recessary to shew, that there subsisted a legally effective contract, and that, by the express provision of the stamp-acts, the memorandum in question not being stamped, could not be given in evidence, or be good or available in any manner whatever; and a distinction was drawn between this case and that above-mentioned, where an unstamped forged instrument was admitted in evidence against the party charged with having forged it, or with uttering it knowing it to be forged. The point was reserved forthe opinion of the Judges, and argued in the Exchequer Chamber; and judgment was afterwards given at the Old Bailey, that the prisoner should be discharged. Stamps pre A regular stamp may be presumed in certain casessumed when. If an agreement is in the possession of a party to the suit, who refuses to produce it after a notice, the other party (1) 1 Taunt. 25. |