Case ID: tex_5/html/0011-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lipscomb, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Wilson v. The State.
    it is not necessary in an indictment for playing cards at a public place to allege to whom the house or other place belongs; and if the ownership of the place be alleged, it may be treated as surplusage, and need not be proved as laid.'
    Appeal from Collin. The appellant was convicted’ of playing cards for money at a public place. The indictment charged the offense to have been ■committed in a blacksmith shop, the property of One -Foster S. Young, thfe same then and there being a public place. There was some conflict in the testimony as to the ownership of the shop, and the court instructed the jury that it was necessary for the State to prove it as laid.
    
      Cravens, for appellant. The proof does not support the verdict. If there is a variance between the proof and the allegations in the indictment, the defendant must be acquited. If that allegation be a matter descriptive of the ■offense, great strictness is required. In the application of the rule relative to the strictness with which the proof must correspond with the allegation, a distinction is made between allegations of matters of substance and allegations of matters of description: the former may be substantially proved; the latter must be proved, in some cases, even to literal precision. Where a person -or thing necessary to be mentioned in an indictment is described*with unnecessary particularity, all the circumstances of the description must be proved. <1 Greenl. Ev., secs. 56, 65; 1 Phil. Ev., 207.) The proof in the case now before the court varies from the allegations in the indictment as to the name of the owner of the blacksmith’s shop where the offense is charged to have been committed. The place is a material portion in the offense, and therefore necessary to be mentioned. The name of the owner is a matter of description, and according to the authority cited, although it might be unnecessary thus to have described it, yet having done so, it must be proved as charged. (Johnson v. The State, Mart. & Yerg. K., 128; 10 Yerg. B., 239.)
    
      Hamilton, for appellee.
    The court charged correctly. The name of the owner of the shop was surplusage.
   Lipscomb, J.

This is an appeal from a conviction and judgment for playing at a game of cards at a public place, in violation of the act of 1840 to suppress gambling. The case differs in nothing from the case of Prior v. The State, decided the present term, and on the doctrine of that case the judgment is affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.