State v. McIntosh

• Decision Date: 31 December 1903
• Citation: 57 A. 83,98 Me. 397
• Parties: STATE v. McINTOSH.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

57 A. 83

98 Me. 397

STATE

v. McINTOSH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 31, 1903.

(Official.)

Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court, Androscoggin County.

Irving L. Mcintosh was convicted of keeping a liquor nuisance, and brings exceptions. Exceptions sustained.

This was an indictment under Rev. St. 1883, c. 17, § 1, wherein the defendant was charged with keeping and maintaining a liquor nuisance in the town of Lisbon between October 1, 1902, and the date of the indictment. The intoxicating liquors in question consisted of six dozen bottles of Jamaica ginger found on the defendant's premises. The defendant, during the time covered by the indictment, was the proprietor of a store in the village of Lisbon Falls, connected with which was a billiard and pool room. His stock of goods consisted of tobacco, cigars, confectionery, fruit, nuts, soda beers, canned goods, patent medicines of various kinds, and three brands of Jamaica ginger, viz., Sariford's, Gilt Edge, and Anchor Mills, the last named being the particular brand seized by the officers, and carried in materially larger quantities than the others.

The analysis of this brand was found to be as follows: Total solids, 11.70 per cent.; resin, .02 per cent.; fixed oil, trace; volatile oil, .066 per cent; residue, caramel and sugar extractive; alcohol, 44.90 per cent.; water sufficient to make 100 per cent.

The evidence tended to show that the compound contained the full medicinal strength of the ginger.

There was evidence tending to show that this brand of Jamaica ginger contained only a trace of resin, while the brands generally sold and used for medicinal purposes contained a considerable proportion of resin, which made it practically impossible to use them as a beverage, the resin being the irritant which exists in the usual brands. The evidence of the defense, however, tended to show that all of the various brands on the market could be used as a beverage.

The evidence further tended to show that Jamaica ginger is a common article of commerce, and is sold by nearly all druggists and grocers as a medicine, it being a common household remedy; that the standard test Jamaica ginger, as provided by the United States pharmacopoeia formula, contains 94 per cent of alcohol, and that the brands and qualities ordinarily sold by druggists and grocers contain from 40 per cent to GO per cent of alcohol.

There was evidence tending to show that this compound was kept and sold by the defendant but there was no direct evidence that it was sold or kept to be sold as a beverage, the defendant claiming that what was sold was sold in the ordinary course of business as a medicine. There was evidence, however, tending to show that empty bottles, in considerable numbers, similar in shape and in markings to those containing the Jamaica ginger seized by the officers, were found some rods from the defendant...