The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1898-04-08
NUISANCE DEFINED.
How the Same Cen Be ReRuIated-Arkan-
sas Law Provides for Sanitary Req
uIatIons Of Towns or CieIes.

The courts have power to enforce
the common law against n public
nuisance, and are authorized by
statuts TO punish acts injurious to
the public health or public morals.
public nuisance &C common law
In defined to be anything offensive TO
the sight, smell or hearing, erected
or carried on in a public place where
the people dwell or pass, or have
right to pass, to their annoyance.
For an act to be publicly harmful, it
need not in fact lnjure every Nnem-
Der OF the community; but it must
be of a nature to produce injury to
all.
Besides being punishable 1t has a
product liable to be abated. While
this offense is indictable 1t is action
able by anyone who has been spe-
cially damaged. No more intense
evil is required to render it indicta-
BILE than actionable. The public
health Ia an interest Of supreme re-
gard. Therefore everything of suffi-
cient magnitude, calculated to i'm
pair it, is indictable at common law.
A disorderly house is a nuisance.
IL is of wide meaning and includes
bawdy houses, common gaming
houses and other places of like char
acter, to which people promiscuously
resort for purposes injurious to the
public morals, or health, or conven-
fence or safety; all of which are in
dictable as public nuisances. So one
under legal obligations to remove a
nuisance is indictable when he suf-
fers it to continue. The test of a
common nuisance 10 not so much the
number of persons actually annoyed,
but the possibility of annoyance to
the public by invasion of its rights.
Care is no element of defense, nor is
the intent or motive material, il that
done in fact creates a nuisance.
What is public nuisance is a ques-
ton of law for the court, but the ex-
istence of facts sufficient TO consti-
tute the offense Is a question of fact
for jury. IL is no defense to say
that the defendant was pecuniarily
unable to abate, nor that the public
will derive some benefit. nor that
similar nuisAnces have been permit
ted or acquiesced in by the public,
nor that he has used every possible
degree Of care to prevent injury.
Stenches or odors sensibly offsns-
i've or which produce such actual
physical discomfort as to interfere
materially with comfort, is a nui-
sance and 1t 10 no1 required that the
odor be positively hurtful or un-
wholesome. An abatement may be
required as part of the sentence,
where the necessary continuance
has been alleged and proved.
Specific authority to enforce the
common law as above set forth ID
conferred by the act of congress oil
May 2, 1890, adopting the provisions
of common or statute law of England
as 1t obtains in the state OF Arkan-
sas. The punishment for all such
common law misdemeAnors is fine
and imprisonment. InBuch cases the
fine shall not exceed one hundred
dollars and the imprisonment shall
not exceed three months.
But even in the absence of the
common law I should think certain
nuisances might be punished under
section 1861 of the criminal laws oi
Arkansas, which provides that Il
any person shall commit any act in
furious to the public health or public
morals, or to the perversion or OBJ
struction of public justice or the due
administration of the laws, he shal
be deemed guilty of misdemeanor.
\ The punishment in such cases is tha
il prescribed in section 1888. Mans
FIELDS Digest, and 10 Imprisonment
not exceeding one year, or by fin'
not exceeding S250 or by fne and inn
prisonment both,-South McAleatel
Capital.