Herzinger v. State
| Decision Date | 01 March 1889 |
| Parties | HERZINGER v. STATE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from criminal court of Baltimore city.
John Herzinger appeals from a conviction for keeping a bawdy or disorderly house.
Argued before ALVEY, C.J., and MILLER, IRVING, ROBINSON, STONE BRYAN, MCSHERRY, and YELLOTT, JJ.
Thos. C. Weeks, for appellant.
Atty. Gen. Whyte and Charles G. Kerr, for the State.
The traverser, being convicted by the verdict of a jury, brings the case here on a single exception, as to the admissibility of evidence. The indictment, upon which a general verdict was found, contains two counts,--one for keeping a bawdy-house and the other for keeping a disorderly house. What the whole testimony was upon which the verdict was founded, does not appear. In the bill of exceptions it is stated that the state produced Edith Lewis, who testified "that she went once with a gentleman, whose name she did not know, to the traverser's hotel, on Eden street, at 12 o'clock in the day, to get something to drink; that they got a room, and staid there an hour, and after that they went off. The witness being interrogated by the state as to whether she staid with her companion, and whether she understood what was meant by "staid with him," answered that she did that her companion wanted to keep her, and to pay her board, which was seven dollars per week, and give her five dollars or ten dollars for herself. She further testified that the traverser was not present, nor did she see him during these transactions. To the admissibility of which testimony the traverser excepted; and this presents the only question in the case. The bill of exception does not state that the evidence thus offered by the state and admitted by the court was the whole evidence produced to support the indictment; and in the absence of such statement in the bill of exception this court cannot assume that the evidence excepted to constituted the whole evidence that was produced by the state. Wolfe v. Hauver, 1 Gill, 85, 92. The keeping of a bawdy-house constitutes at common law a common nuisance, "not only in respect of its endangering the public peace, by drawing together dissolute and debauched persons, but also in respect of its apparent tendency to corrupt the manners of both sexes by such an open profession of lewdness." 1 Hawk, P. C. bk. 1, c. 74, § 1; Rosc. Crim. Ev. (10th Ed.) 823. The gist of the offense consists in keeping the house for lewd and unchaste purposes, and not in the reputation of the house. Henson v. State, 62 Md. 231, 234. But it is not necessary that the indecency or disorderly conduct of the frequenters of the house should be perceptible from the exterior of the house. Reg....
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