Hicken v. State

²⁵² BoND, L, delivered the opinion of the Court. ■ The appeal is) from a judgment imposing a fine upon the appellant after conviction on an indictment for violation of sections 135 to 138, inclusive, of article 27 of the Code of Public General Laws, in the sale of butter substitutes. Error is .alleged in the overruling of a demurrer to each of the first and second counts of the indictment. The first count charges that the accused, on a day specified, “unlawfully did offer and expose for sale and sell and deliver to one Phyllis Teakle as for natural butter a certain substitute made or colored to imitate natural butter not manufactured exclusively from pure milk or cream or both, with or without salt or harmless coloring matter.” Section 135 of article 27 prohibits the offer and exposure for sale, sale and delivery “as for natural butter, renovated butter, butter made "by the Quinness patent or process, or that made by other’ similar process, whereby casein of milk or other ingredients are made to imitate and resemble natural butter made from cream or other substitute made or colored to imitate natural butter.” And section 138 defines the term “natural butter” in the previous section as “the product usually known by the term Nutter,’ .and which butter is manufactured exclusively from pure milk or cream, or both, with or without salt or harmless coloring matter.” It will be seen, therefore, that the first count of this indictment charges an offense in the words of these two sections, except that it omits the reference to renovated butter and the other substances specifically described, and uses only the final, general description of “substitute made or colored to imitate natural butter,” as defined in section 138. On the demurrer the appellant contends that the indictment should give a specific description or name of the substitute.

We do not think it necessary in this instance. It is ordinarily sufficient, in an indictment for an offense created by statute, to describe the offense in the words of the statute, and this count does charge the essential fact of the hándling of a substitute for natural butter which is, in so many words,' prohibited. Mincher v. State, 66 Md. 227 , ²⁵³ 234; Benesch v. State, 129 Md. 505, 518 . Of course, tbe practical purpose of an indictment, that of giving tbe accused and tbe court tbe information they may need, and of defining the ground of the prosecution so as to give reasonable