Peninsula Enterprise, April 14, 1888

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Infrastructure -- Commercial - Residential construction

Two handsome dwellings are now in course of erection at Accomac C. H., for Messrs. L. Floyd Nock and Ernest T. Koenig, and work on another for Mr. Geo. F. Parramore will commence shortly.

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Infrastructure -- Commercial - Banks

The receiver of the Exchange National Bank, Norfolk, has been required to place all the uncollected claims of that institution in the hands of his attorney for settlement. This would seem to indicate that depositors on Eastern Shore in the defunct bank, might soon get the last instalment on their money deposited there.

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Professionals -- Realtors and developersInfrastructure -- Commercial - Residential development

Accomac C. H.

Mr. Alfred J. Lilliston will open streets through his farm shortly with outlets at Baptist Church, on jail road and through Parker lot which he has recently purchased, with the view of offering lots to purchasers at reasonable prices. A lively building boom is expected to be result of the enterprise of our townsman.

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Infrastructure -- Public - Government : Customs serviceTransportation -- Water - Channel and harbor dredgingSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SeasideTransportation -- Railroad - FreightLaborers -- FisheriesLaborers -- Wages

Chincoteague.

Our people are indignant at the proposed abolition of the custom house here. The idea is too preposterous to be entertained for a moment by any sensible person. Chincoteague is the central point for all boats trading up and down our waters for a distance of 60 miles, and 125 boats are registered here which number will be increased when the proposed canal is opened between Chincoteague and Delaware bays. To put our boatsmen, many of them poor, to the inconvenience and expense of a trip to Cape Charles or Crisfield, to attend to matters incident to their business, would be injustice of the rankest sort.

In March, 1887, six hundred and fourteen tons of oysters and merchandise were shipped from Chincoteague by steamer Widgeon -- in March of this year twelve hundred and ninety four tons. The tonnage, as will be noted, is doubled and the receipts more than trebled.

Our oyster tongers now receive daily for their "catch" from $5 to $7.

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Moral -- Alcohol

Hallwood.

A citizen from the Bayside on his way to this place, a few days ago, with cart and oxen, met a Philadelphia drummer and mistaking him for the Revenue Collector, to whom he had been reported, deserted his team and made his escape in the wood, at a rate of speed which would have put to shame the owner of Maud S.

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Infrastructure -- Commercial - HotelsTourists and sportsmen -- Field sports - Hunting : Waterfowl and shorebirdTourists and sportsmen -- Other recreation - ResortsSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SeasideSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : SeedInfrastructure -- Public : Towns

Horntown.

Mr. Wm. S. Holland, proprietor of the Holland Hotel, is expecting a large number of sportsmen from the northern cities in a few days. They will come to shoot snipe, which abound in this section.

Many of our citizens of the town, who are oyster planters, have been enriched by the fat oysters and good prices this season, and are now busily engaged in planting seed for another crop.

Your contributor gathered the above items in a flying visit to the little town this week. He will also add, that it is one of the thriftiest and prettiest villages on the Eastern Shore. In addition to many handsome residences it has six stores, well stocked with general merchandise, handsome millinery store, first class hotel, fine church, excellent graded school, wheelwright, undertaker and blacksmith shops, steam saw mill, &c.

W.J.M.

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Transportation -- Water - Wharves

Onancock.

The shed on wharf here belonging to E. S. Steamboat Co., is being enlarged and repaired.

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Infrastructure -- Public - Government : Postal serviceTransportation -- Road - MaintenanceInfrastructure -- Commercial - Commercial constructionInfrastructure -- Commercial - House movingFields -- Livestock - HorsesTransportation -- Water - SailboatsTourists and sportsmen -- Field sports - Lodges

Wachapreague.

L. C. Bulman and J. W. Bell have each put in bids for the mail route soon to be established from this town to Keller station. Mr. Bulman, it is said, proposes putting in another and lower bid than his former one, thereby underbidding Mr. Bell and securing the contract himself for said route.

Our county roads hereabouts which have been flooded with water and otherwise in most terrible condition since Christmas, now that they have dried, greatly need repairing in their "holy" condition.

John A. Brittingham of our town, has recently moved, through the skillful engineering of our energetic townsman, Capt. E. J. Foote, the Bulman-Hargus building up to the rear of his already large and spacious storehouse, making it a mammoth establishment of nearly 100 feet in length.

A. S. Kellam recently bought a fine two year old Walker Morrill colt with fine promise of speed, of Mr. John Roberts of Bridgetown. He is also rebuilding his handsome yacht Carrier, formerly belonging to the Accomac Club, near here, of 30 feet keel, and the fastest yacht of that length in the waters of Accomac, which he will use to convey passengers to and from the island.

Opinion of the Court of Appeals of Va. in the Case of Savage vs. Commonwealth.

Moral -- Alcohol

The plaintiff in error was indicted and convicted in the county court of Accomac county for selling intoxicating liquors and sentenced to imprisonment in jail for thirty days, and to pay a fine of one hundred dollars. This judgment having been affirmed by the circuit court of the said county, the case on a writ of error was brought to this court.

The indictment, to which there was a demurrer, charges that the defendant "on the ______ day of March, 1887, in the magisterial district of Lee, in the said county, did unlawfully sell intoxicating liquors to one John Johnson against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth."

It is contended for the plaintiff in error that the indictment is defective -- first because it does not charge that the offence was committed in a magisterial district which had voted against license; secondly, because it does not charge that the liquor sold was such as was the subject of license under the statute before the vote on the question of license was taken; and thirdly, because it does not state a time certain at which the liquor was sold.

We are of opinion that these grounds of objection are untenable. It was not necessary to allege in the indictment that the magisterial district therein mentioned had voted against license, for that was a fact of which the court would take judicial notice, since the result of an election in favor of no license, when duly certified and laid before the court, as prescribed by the statute, is to adopt in the magisterial district so voting the provisions of a public statute. Nor was it necessary to allege that the liquor charged to have been sold was anything than merely intoxicating. The language of the statute is, that "any person who shall sell any intoxicating liquors within the limits of any magisterial district voting against license," shall be punished, etc., Acts 1885-86, p. 259, sec. 5. The indictment follows the language of the statute, and no further averment on that point was necessary. Commonwealth vs. Bennett 108 Mass. 27.

And the third and last objection is met by the provisions of the statute, which enacts that "no indictment or other accusation shall be quashed or deemed invalid for omitting to state, or stating imperfectly, the time at which the offence was committed, when time is not the essence of the offence." Acts 1877-78, p. 335, sec. 11-12.

It is contended, however, that the county court erred in overruling the defendants motion for a new trial, and this position is well taken.

The only witness introduced by the Commonwealth to prove the sale of liquor by the defendant is John W. Johnson, who testifies that in March, 1887, after the adoption of the local option law for Lee district, in Accomac county, and before the finding of the indictment, he applied to the clerk of the defendant's hotel for whiskey, that he was told by the clerk he had no whiskey, but that he could let him have some ginger, whereupon he bought and paid ten cents for something that was called ginger, and drank it for ginger. It was served, he says, in a whiskey glass, in a room at the hotel formerly used as a barroom, and looked and tasted like whiskey. He thought it would have made him drunk, if he had drunk enough of it, and that it would not have taken more of the ginger to make him drunk than of common whiskey, but he was not prepared to swear it was intoxicating, because he did not drink enough of it to enable him to do so. And there was no other evidence upon the subject.

This being so, it is plain that the evidence is not sufficient to support the verdict. The court cannot hold, in the absence of proof, that "ginger" is intoxicating, and here the evidence fails to show that the article bought by the witness was of that nature. He says he called for whiskey, but was told they had none, and though the liquor he drank, may have looked and tasted like whiskey, yet he could not swear it was whiskey, or that it was intoxicating. -- The circumstances may justly arouse suspicion against the defendant, but that is not enough. In a criminal case, the defendant is entitled to an acquittal, unless his guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt; and the verdict in the present case cannot be sustained consistently with the rule.

Moreover, the evidence does not show that the transaction occurred either in Lee magisterial district, or at any other place in Accomac county, and that it did is mere matter of inference. The witness Johnson, testifies that it occurred at the defendant's hotel, but he does not give the location of the hotel nor does any other witness who testified in the case. The witness, Tunnell, testifies that he is commissioner of the revenue for district No. 2 of Accomac county, and that the defendant has a license to keep a house of entertainment, but does not know whether the room in which the liquor in question was sold is included in that license or not, and the testimony of Gunter, the only other witness, is equally unsatisfactory. All he says is, that he is familiar with the house where the liquor was sold, but does not know whether the defendant is the proprietor or not. And this was all the evidence introduced.

In Richardson vs. Commonwealth, 80 Va. 124, it was decided that an indictment cannot be sustained without proof that the offense was committed in the county where the venue is laid. -- And not only is this so, but in a case like the present, the proof must show that the offence was committed in the district mentioned in the indictment, otherwise a conviction cannot be sustained. This is a elementary principle, and is of itself decisive of the case.

The judgment will therefore be reversed, and the case remanded for a new trial.

A Copy.

Teste. GEO. K. TAYLOR, C.C.