delivered the opinion of the court.
This case comes here upon two separate writs of érror allowed upon the same record, to review judgments of the District Court imposing fine and imprisonment upon each of the plaintiffs in error, upon their conviction on an indictment founded upon the act of Congress of June 25, 1910, commonly known as the White-Slave Act (36 Stat. 825, c. 395).
The case was brought directly to this court, because the constitutionality of the statute was drawn in question. This question has since been settled adversely to plaintiffs in error.
Hoke
v.
United States,
There were numerous counts in the indictment, and a general verdict of guilty. The substance of the charge was that defendants caused and procured two girls to be transported in interstate pommerce from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Chicago, Illinois, for the purpose of prostitution. There was also a count charging a conspiracy to commit the same offense. The theory of the Government, sufficiently stated in the indictment and supported by evidence at the trial, was that in рursuance of an understanding between defendants and a man named Corder, they gave him eleven dollars in money, with instructions to proceed from Chicago to Milwaukee, induce one or ■both of the girls to retúrn with him to Chicаgo, paying their transportation and other expenses out of the eleven dollars, and bring them to a house of prostitution in the latter city kept by the defendants; and that Corder carried out these instructions.to the letter, bringing both girls over an interstate electric railway line and escorting them to defendants’ house for the purpose of prostitution.
Of the questions of law that are raised, only the following seem to require mention:
1. It is insisted that the offense was not fully proved because there was nothing to show that defendants either directed or knew how the girls were to come from Milwaukee to Chicago, whether in a private vehicle or through the instrumentality of a common carrier. But, in our opinion, in order to constitute an offense under the act it is not essential that the transportation be by common carrier. The statute reads: “That any person who shall knowingly trаnsport or cause to be transported, or aid or assist in obtaining transportation for, or in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, . . . any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, оr
The prohibition is not in' terms confined to transportation by common carriеr, nor need such a limitation be implied in order to sustain the constitutionality of the enactment. As has already been decided, it has the quality of a police regulation, although enacted in the exercise of thе power to regulate interstate commerce
(Hoke
v.
United States,
The contention that defendants were not within the prohibition of the act because they did not control or instruct Corder in the choice of means of conveyance is not worthy of serious consideration. According to the Government’s evidence, Corder was employed by defendants as their agent, and furnished by them with money sufficient for the expenses of the transportation, but without definite instructions as to what mode should be еmployed. A natural inference was that he should decide upon the mode and select the route; and that such selection was within the scope of his agency.
2. The female defendant offered herself as a witness, and in the course of her cross-examination was asked whether she was addicted to the use of morphine. Having
• 3. Error is assigned upon certain rulings of the trial court permitting cross-examination of the same witness, tending to show that she and the other defendant lived unhappily as husband and wife, were ocсasionally separated, and (as is said) that they at times indulged in the use of pistols. No evidence was in fact offered or admitted tending to show that weapons had been used, if we except, an obscure allusion to "pistols” in a letter that had been written by a person in New York City to the female defendant in Chicago. The use made of this letter was permissible for other reasons. The evidence as to the quarrels and separаtion was plainly admissible. The Government’s case depended mainly upon the testimony of Corder. He appeared to have been an accomplice, hence circumstantial corroboration of his story was especially material. He had testified that Mrs. Wilson asked him to go to Milwaukee for the purpose of getting the two girls, and had mentioned as a circumstance that this conversation took place at the Union Depot in Chicago, where he had met Mrs. Wilson at her. request
4. It is assigned for error that the court permitted the Government to cross-examine the defendant, Charles Wilson, respecting entries made by him and his wife in their books of account, showing payments of money to certain police officers, and indicating friendly relations, if not cooperation, between defendants, as keepers of a house of prostitution, and members of the police force. This was not objected to as exceeding the limits of proper cross-examination, but only as being “incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.” We think it was admissible as tending to show the character of the house, and as tending to rebut evidence previously introduced by the defense to the effect that Mrs. Wilson had refused tо harbor the girls for fear of police interference.
.5. Error is assigned upon the instructions of the trial court to the jury respecting the presumption of innocence, and the definition of reasonable doubt. Counsеl for defendants preferred no request upon either subject previous to the delivery of the charge. The court instructed the jury in substance that the arrest of defendants, their indictment by the grand jury, and their arraignment, were nо evidence whatever of their guilt; that the presumption of innocence meant that at the beginning of the trial they were as innocént of the charges as any man in the jury-box; that this presumption continued to abide with the dеfendants as a complete protection, unless and until it gave way because inconsistent with the existence of a situation proved by the evidence in the case beyond ail reasonable doubt; that by that [reasonable doubt] was meant, not the frame of mind of a man endeavoring to
6. Error is assigned because the court refused to charge the jury, as requested, to the effect that if they should beliеve from the evidence that defendants, after the girls came to Chicago from Milwaukee, refused to accept them, and voluntarily abandoned their evil intention and re
We find no error in the record.
Judgments affirmed.