Herzinger v. State

Alvey, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The traverser "being convicted by the verdict of a jury, brings the case here on a single exception as to the admissibility of evidence. The indictment upon which a general verdict of guilty was found, contains two counts, one for keeping a baiody-house, and the other for keeping a disorderly-house. What the whole testimony ivas upon which the verdict was founded, does not appear.

In the bill of exception it is stated that the State produced Edith Lewis, who testified “that she went once with a gentleman, whose name she did not know, to the traverser’s hotel, on Eden street, at 12 o’clock in the day, to get something to ²⁸⁰ drink; that they got a .room and staid there an hour,, and after that they went off. The witness being interrogated by the State as to whether she staid with her companion, and whether she understood what was-meant by ‘staid toith him,’ answered that she did; that her companion wantéd to keep her, and to pay her board, which was $7 per week, and give her $5 or $10 for herself. She further testified that the traverser was not present, nor did she see him during these transactions.” To the admissibility of which testimony the traverser excepted; and this presents the only question in the case. The bill of exception does not state that the evidence-thus offered by the State and admitted by the Court was the whole evidence produced to support the indictment; and, in the absence of such statement in the bill of exception, this Court cannot assume that the evidence excepted to constituted the whole evidence that was produced by the State.

Wolf vs. Hauver, 1 Gill, 85 , 92. The keeping of a bawdy-house constitutes at common law a common nuisance, “not only in respect of its. endangering the public peace, by drawing together dissolute and debauched persons, but also in respect of its apparent tendency to corrupt the manners of both sexes, by such an open profession of lewdness.” 1 Hawk. P. C., bk. 1, ch. 74, sec. 1; Rosc. Cr.

Ev. (10th Ed.,) 823. The gist of the offence consists in