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4 Pendergast vs. United States. Code and therefore punishable as a contempt, we are of the opinion that this prosecution was barred by § 1044 of the Revised Statutes. That section provides: ‘‘No person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital . . . unless the indict ment is found, or the information is instituted, within three years next after such offense shall have been committed . . . .” It would seem that the statute fits this case like a glove. If the conduct in question was a contempt, there can be no doubt that it was a criminal contempt as defined by our decisions. See Nye v. United States, supra, pp. 41-43 and cases cited. As such it was an ‘‘offense’’ against the United States within the meaning of § 1044. It was held in Gompers v. United States, 233 U. 8. 604, that a wilful violation of an injunction, likewise punishable as a contempt under § 268 of the Judicial Code, was such an ‘‘offense’’. And see United States v. Goldman, 277 U. 8. 229. Cf. Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U. 8S. 87. It was said in the Gompers case that those contempts were ‘‘infractions of the law, visited with punish- ment as such. If such acts are not criminal, we are in error as to the most fundamental characteristic of erimes as that word has been understood in English speech.’? 283 U. 8. p. 610. That observation is equally pertinent here. Moreover, we can see Do reason for treating one type of contempt under § 268 of the Judi- cial Code differently in this respect from others under the same section. No such difference is discernible from the language of $1044. Because of that and because of the further circumstance that Congress classified them together in defining the offense in § 268, we can hardly conctude that a distinction between them for purposes of § 1044 should be implied. Furthermore, the fact that this prosecution was by information, the absence of which has been held not fatal under § 1044 (Gompers v. United States, supra, pp. 611-612) brings the case squarely within the language of the section. : Certainly the power to punish contempts m the “‘presence’’ of the court, like the power to punish contempts for wilful violations of the court’s decrees ‘‘must have some limit in time’’. Gompers v. United States, supra, p. 612. It is urged, however, that there is no limitation on prosecutions for contempts in the ‘‘presence’’ of the court except as one may be implied from the conclusion of the proceeding in which the contempt arises. But if we are free to consider the matter as open, no reason for that different treat- ment of contempts in the ‘‘presence’’ of the court is apparent.