This was an indictment on the statute of Massachusetts of 1894, chap. 522, § 98, for negotiating and transacting unlawful insurance with a foreign insurance company not admitted to do business in Massachusetts.
Section 98 of that act is as follows: 'Any person who shall assume to act as an insurance agent or insurance broker without license therefor as herein provided, or who shall act in any manner in the negotiation or transaction of unlawful insurance with a foreign insurance company not admitted to do business in this commonwealth, or who as principal or agent shall violate any provision of this act in regard to the negotiation or effecting of contracts of insurance, shall be punished by fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500 dollars for each offense.'
The act, in § 3, provides that 'it shall be unlawful for any company to make any contract of insurance upon or concerning any property or interests or lives in this commonwealth, or with any resident thereof, or for any person as insurance agent or insurance broker to make, negotiate, solicit, of in any manner aid in the transaction of such insurance, unless and except as authorized under the provisions of this act;' and that 'all contracts of insurance on property, lives, or interests in this commonwealth shall be deemed to be made therein.' And in §§ 77-82 it prescribes the conditions with which foreign insurance companies must comply before they can do business in Massachusetts, requiring each company, among other things, to appoint the insurance commissioner its attorney, upon whom process in any suit against it may be served; to appoint some resident of Massachusetts as its agent; to obtain from the insurance commissioner a certificate that it has complied with the laws of Massachusetts, and is authorized to make contracts of insurance; and, if incorporated or associated under the laws of any government other than the United States or one of the states, to deposit with the treasurer of Massachusetts or the financial officer of some other state a sum equal to the capital required of like companies, to be held in trust for the benefit of all the company's policyholders and creditors in the United States.