Commonwealth v. Whalen

• Decision Date: 29 September 1881
• Citation: 131 Mass. 419
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Patrick Whalen & another

131 Mass. 419

Commonwealth v. Patrick Whalen & another

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 29, 1881

Hampshire.Indictment alleging that the defendants, on December 27, 1880, at Easthampton, in the night time "feloniously did break and enter a certain building, to wit, the store of one George W. White, there situate, with intent then and there in said store to commit the crime of larceny;" and that the said defendants"then and there in the said store one gallon of oysters of the value of one dollar, and ten gallons of beer of the value of five dollars, of the property, goods and chattels of the said George W. White, in the said store, then and there being found, then and there feloniously did steal, take and carry away against the peace," &c.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham, C. J., George W White testified for the government that he kept a saloon in the building in question; that he kept oysters, and cooked meals for customers; that there were in the building occupied by him a kitchen, two dining-rooms and a bedroom, and in one of these dining-rooms, which was a front room, there was a bar; that he kept and sold lager beer and cigars; that the bar-room was in the front part of the house, into which a door opened from the street; that the rooms next in the rear of this were the other dining-room and the bedroom, and in the rear of these were a kitchen and a small hall leading to the kitchen; and that the defendants entered by a back door which opened directly into the kitchen.The defendants asked the judge to rule that there was no sufficient evidence that the building described in the indictment was a store within the proper and legal signification of that term.

The judge declined so to rule; but instructed the jury that, in the description of the building in the indictment under the name of "store," there was not such a misdescription of that building...