898 FEDERAL REPORTER. �court for the western district of Pennsylvania. In thai suit Eoterts and wife filed a bill to restrain him from infringing letters patent foi; improved methods of exploding torpedoes in oil wells to increase the production thereof, and for damages for such infringement. In the course of his said examina- tion the defendant was asked as to the ownership of the oil wells on the Smith farm, and he testified : "I do not own any wells on the Smith farm, * * * I own an interest in one well on said Smith farm. The name of the well is No. 5. J. M. Perdue, William Faas, and, I think, F. A. Perdue, *
- • I think own the wells No. 1 and No. 4, Smith farm."
This testimony was alleged to be false, and was the perjury assigned ; the indictment averring that upon the hearing of the motion for a preliminary injunction it became and was a material question whether the defendant owned any oil wells on the Smith farm. The bill in equity did not concem the ownership of the oil wells on the Smith farm, nor were they or the farm itself named in the bill. Other witnesses, how- ever, had given evidence before the said commissioner — to be used at the hearing of the motion for a preliminary injunc- tion — to the effeot that the defendant had been and was engaged in operating the above-mentioned oil wells on the Smith fai-m, and that torpedoes in infringement of the Koberts patents had been exploded therein. None of these statements were denied by the defendant in his said examination, and he expressly admitted that these wells were under his oontrol and charge. At the trial of the defendant on October 27, 1880, the government offered his aforesaid examination, with evi- dence of its falsity in this, yiz. : that the defendant, at the time of his examination, owned one-half of well No. 1 in hia own right, and one-half as trustee of M. A. Long; that he owned three-eighths of well No. e; that he owned well No. 5 entirely, and three-eighths of well No. 6. The defendant's counsel objeeted to the evidence on the ground that the owner- ship of the oil wells was an immaterial matter. �Wm. A. Stone, U. S. Dist. Att'y, and S. F. Bowser, for the United States. �B. B. Carnahan and John M. Thompsoïi, for defendant. ����
