FRAUD

(Lat. fraus, deceit), an act or course of deception deliberately practised with the view of gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage, such as the obtaining of goods under false pretences, and the like. Fraud is a generic term comprising both crimes and torts. For criminal proceedings the various crimes involving frauds are punishable by statute. The civil remedy for fraud is a suit for damages or for avoidance of the transaction in which it is contained, and every species of fraud of which the law takes cognizance renders voidable every transaction into which it enters as the constituent material element. Fraud may be committed in many ways, such as by false representation, concealment of material circumstances that ought to be revealed, underhand dealing, taking advantage of imbecility or intoxication, . The law will not impute fraud to one who has not actually been guilty of fraud, so there is no such thing as ‘technical’ or ‘constructive fraud. By statute, however, a director of a company which i ues a fraudulent prospectus may be liable for it under certain conditions although he himself did not authorize its i ue. Moreover @ person may in certain circumstances obtain in equity the setting aside of a remedy, otherwise restricted to fraud, in a transaction which is not actually fraudulent. The Statute of Frauds was the statute 29 Charles II. c. 3, pa ed 1677. Among its complex provisions it provided that various transactions should be in writing or evidenced by some memorandum in writing signed by the party who is sought to be made liable thereon; else they shall, for most or all purposes, be deemed unenforceable. This provision is re-enacted by section 40, The Law of Property Act, 1925, FRAUNHOFER (frour ‘ho-fér), Joseph von, German optician, born 1787, died 1826. Apprenticed in 1799 to a gla -polisher in Munich, he ultimately became a partner in a manufactory of optical instruments there. His many improvements in gla making, in optical instruments, and in the polishing of lenses, have been eclipsed by his investigation of the innumerable dark fixed lines in the solar spectrum, known as Fraunhofer’s Lines, The importance of this discovery can scarcely be overestimated. It led to the invention and use of the spectroscope, to the science of spectroscopy, and to all our present knowledge of solar and stellar chemistry. See SPECTRUM; SPECTROSCOPE. 571