A conspiracy, therefore, is not only a guilty combination, of two or more persons, for an unlawful end by any means, or for a lawful end by unlawful means, but also one for an immoral end, a malicious end, as, let us say, the ruin of a third person, or the injury of the public.

" And as it gradually assumed shape and got definite and broad, the idea, we will say, by 1765, when Blackstone wrote, was this: A conspiracy is a combination by two or more men, persons or companies, to bring about, either an unlawful result by means lawful or unlawful, or a lawful result by unlawful means.

"Conspiracy," was the answer.

Now I should only add that it is very important to rememberand even the courts do not always remember itthat the thing being punished as a conspiracy is not the end, but the combining; the conspiracy itself is the criminal act.