pose must have been believed and relied upon by the defrauded party and been the means of inducing the prosecutor to part with the property. (Am. & Eng. Ency, of Law, (2d ed.) 819; 2 Wharton on Crim. Law,—11th ed.— 1627.) False representations, or anything claimed to be representations, in order to be "false pretenses" within the meaning of the law, must be the direct cause of the loss of the thing of value; must be the moving cause and not the cause of the cause; must be the proximate cause. (Pierce v. People, 81 Ill. 98; Commonwealth v. Drew, 19 Pick. 184.) To sustain a prosecution for obtaining goods under false pretenses, it must, in legal effect, be charged in the indictment as well as proved at the trial that the goods were obtained by means of the alleged false pretenses. People v. McAllister, 49 Mich. 12; State v. Connor, 110 Ind. 469.

From these authorities it is clear that to support a conviction for obtaining the money of another by means of the confidence game the money must be obtained by the person convicted by reason of the confidence reposed in him by his victim,—that is, that the confidence induced in the victim, by means of whatever swindle, device or scheme is used, must be the moving cause and reason for the victim parting with his money and giving it to the accused. Tested by this rule, even if the testimony of Mrs. Janos is to be believed in its entirety, there is no evidence that she parted with her money because of any confidence in any representations that plaintiff in error made to her that it was to be used to bribe a judge. On the contrary, according to her testimony and the testimony of her niece, she was not moved by such representations and did not repose confidence in him but consistently refused to part with her money and insisted on handing it to the judge herself. According to the evidence, if the loss of her money had depended upon the confidence she had in plaintiff in error she would not have parted with it or been deprived of it. On the contrary, the plaintiff in error, according to her story, was

obliged to and did take it by force and did not secure it on the pretense that he would use it to bribe a judge.

There are various crimes by which a person may obtain the property of another, ranging from extortion by threats (commonly called blackmail) to robbery and burglary. What constitutes and distinguishes the crime in any case is the method or means employed to separate the victim from his money or property, and the crime must be proved as charged. In prosecutions for obtaining money by the confidence game it must be proved that the person accused obtained the money or property of his victim by reason of the confidence reposed in him, and this the plaintiff in error clearly did not do.

The case of VanEyck v. People, 178 Ill. 199, is relied upon by counsel for defendant in error. In that case the person whose money was taken was lured to a saloon by swindlers, who there showed him a game with dice and during the game took his money from him and threatened to have him arrested for gambling and kept his money and ejected him from the saloon, but it was held in that case that the accused was an accessory, and that inducing a man to bet on the top and bottom of dice and taking his pocketbook and money from his pocket for the purpose of betting is a confidence game rather than a robbery, even though fear is aroused in him for the loss of his money, and that the facts proven indicated enough of a confidence game to sustain a conviction and distinguish it from robbery. It is true that the same act may constitute different offenses, but there are some offenses which are so different from each other that proof of facts which would constitute one offense would disprove the commission of another in the very nature of things. For instance, facts which would clearly constitute nothing but robbery or a taking by overcoming the will of the victim by force or fear could never justify a conviction for obtaining money by the confidence game or by false pretenses, or vice versa, because proof of facts

which show the overpowering of the will by force or fear in one case would also show that there was no confidence reposed in the accused by the person whose will and powers of resistance were so overcome. We are referred to no case, and are aware of none, in which a conviction for obtaining money from another by means of the confidence game has been sustained where the element of confidence reposed in the swindler was lacking or where evidence was lacking that the victim parted with his money by reason of such confidence.

For the reasons stated the judgment of the criminal court of Cook county must be reversed.

Judgment reversed.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE CARTER, dissenting.

(No. 11916.-Judgment affirmed.)

THE PEOPLE ex rel. Henry Larson et al. Appellants, vs. JOHN GORDON et al. Appellees.

Opinion filed April 17, 1918.

1. ELECTIONS-when persons are and are not legal voters in the township. Registered voters in a township where they own their home, who move out of the township for one year with the intention of returning, and who do return, at the end of the year are legal voters in the township during such year, but residents of a township who marry and go to another State with the intention of making their home there, lose their residence in the township and do not become legal voters therein by the mere fact that they subsequently change their minds and return to the township.

2. SAME when parties boarding in school district are not legal voters therein. One who works for and boards with his employer within the boundaries of a school district but who claims as his home his aunt's residence outside the district is not a legal voter in the district; and the same is true of one who boards with a relative in the district while being attended by a physician but who claims his residence is with his nephew outside of the district, to which place he intends to return as soon as he is able.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Knox county; the Hon. GEORGE W. THOMPSON, Judge, presiding.

A. J. BOUTELLE, State's Attorney, (WILLIAMS, Lawrence, Welsh & GREEN, of counsel,) for appellants.

FLETCHER CARNEY, JAMES W. CARNEY, and SIG. B. NELSON, for appellees.

Mr. JUSTICE DUNN delivered the opinion of the court:

This was an information in the nature of quo warranto calling upon the appellees to show by what authority they were exercising the offices of school directors of an alleged school district in the county of Knox. The appellees filed pleas setting forth the proceedings for the organization of the district, resulting in an order of the county superintendent of schools creating the district. The pleas were replied to, a trial was had by the court without a jury and a judgment was rendered for the respondents, from which the relators appealed to the Appellate Court for the Second District. Since a franchise was involved, that is, the right of the district to be a corporation,—the Appellate Court transferred the cause to this court.

It will be necessary to consider only the question whether the petition for the creation of the district was signed by two-thirds of the legal voters residing within the territory of the district, as required by paragraph 4 of section 46 of the School law. It was stipulated that the petition was signed by 206 legal voters exclusive of the names of three persons who signed the petition, and that there were 100 legal voters who did not sign the petition exclusive of 10 persons who were named. The only controversy is in regard to these 13 persons.

The territory of the district was in the townships of Victoria and Copley. The village of Victoria was wholly within the district, and was divided by the town line be

tween the townships of Victoria and Copley. The three signers of the petition whose names are in controyersy are Mr. and Mrs. Vernon C. Moak and Theodore Johnson. Johnson resided in the district in Victoria township on March 14, 1916, when the petition was presented. He was a registered voter in Victoria township in October, 1914, and there is no evidence in the record that he did not continue to be such voter when the petition was presented. Mr. and Mrs. Moak resided in the district in Copley township and were registered voters in that township in October, 1914. Moak owned the house in which they had lived since 1907. About March 1, 1916, pursuant to an arrangement with his father-in-law, he moved into a house of the latter in Victoria township for one year with the intention of returning at the end of the year. During the year he voted in Copley township and at the end of the year moved back into his home in that township. He and his wife were legal voters in that township.

There were 209 legal voters signers of the petition. Of the 10 persons in controversy who did not sign the petition only William Patton was registered as a voter in either township. The names of Lionel Cox and Andrew Newstrom, two of the ten, are not mentioned in the evidence. The only evidence in regard to George Kennedy is that of his sister-in-law, who said that his residence was in Lafayette, outside of Knox county, though he worked in the summer time in Victoria and then boarded with his brother and sister-in-law. Enos Mitchell testified that he had made his home in Victoria, Lynn and Copley townships for nine years; that he worked in the village of Victoria for Bert Thomas, in the livery business, beginning the latter part of February or first of March, 1916, boarding at Thomas' place, and that he stayed there until April 6, 1916; that he kept his clothes and stuff at his aunt's, in Victoria township, outside the school district, and that when he went to work at a place he called that his home. He voted in