ENGROSSING AND REGRATING. An engrosser, regrater, or forestaller, is a person who buys grain, flesh, fish, or other articles of food, with the intention of selling them again at an enhanced price, either in the same fair or market, or in another in the neigh borhood, or who purchases or contracts for corn while still in the field. These practices were regarded as criminal in most countries, before the laws by which trade is regulated were properly understood. In England, they were forbidden by various statutes, from the time of Edward VI. to that of queen Anne. These statutes were repealed by 12 Geo. III. c. 71, on the preamble, that it hath been found by experience, that the restraints laid upon the dealing in corn, meal, flour, cattle, and sundry other sorts of victuals, by preventing a free trade in the said commodities, have a tendency to dis courage the growth, and to enhance the price of the same. It was found, however, that engrossing was not only a statutory but a common law offense, and a prosecution for it in the latter character actually took place in the present century. The act 7 and 8 Vict. c. 24, for abolishing the offenses of forestalling, regrating, and engrossing, was conse quently passed. Besides declaring that the several" offenses of badgering, engrossing, forestalling, and regrating be utterly taken away and abolished, and that no information or prosecution shall lie either at common law or by virtue of any statute, either in En5 land, Scotland, or Ireland, this statute repeals a whole host of earlier enactments in restraint of trade, which had been omitted in the statute in the time of George III.,
above referred to. The rubrics of these enactments give a curious picture not only of the trading errors, but in many other respects of the obsolete customs of our ancestors. The first, for example (51 Henry III.), is called a " statute of the pillory and tumbrel, and of the assize of bread and ale." Then there is an act passed in several reigns which provides for the punishment of " a butcher or cook that buyeth flesh of Jews, and selleth the same to Christians." Notwithstanding the doctrine of the Scottish law, that statutes may be repealed by mere desuetude, it was thought safer to include the Scottish statutes to the same effect. The earliest is 1503, c. 38, and the latest 1661, c. 280.
The statute 6 and 7 Vict. c. 24, does not apply to the spreading of false rumors, with the intent to enhance or decry the price of merchandise, or preventing goods from being brought to market by force or threats, which continue to be punishable as if that act had not been mall/My - Diaitized Microsoft (14)