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16 N.H. 357

State v. Lord

Superior Court of New Hampshire

Decided December 15, 1844

Superior Court of New Hampshire · decided 1844-12-15

Indictment, alleging that the defendant at Effingham in said county, on, &c., made and erected and caused to be made and erected a certain mound or dam across the ditch on the northerly side of the traveled part of the public road leading from Lord’s store so called in said Effingham to Parsonsfield in the State of Maine, where the road crosses the line between Effingham and Parsons-field; “which dam or mound is erected and is situated partly in said Effingham and partly in…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1844-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1984

1 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

20184418501860187018801890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Parker, C. J.

¶1If the gravamen of the complaint in this case was the erection of the dam, the prosecution must fail by reason of the variance between the indictment and the evidence in relation to the place where it was situated,' .and no indictment could be sustained here, because the *359offence, according to the evidence, would have been committed without the jurisdiction of the court.

¶2But the gist of the offence charged is not in the erection of the dam, but in the' overflowing and damaging of the highway in Effingham. The variance between the indictment and the evidence respecting the precise situation of the dam by means of which the defendant caused the nuisance in the highway, is therefore immaterial. The averment that the dam was situated partly in Effingham and partly in Parsonsfield, may be rejected as surplusage. Starkie on Grim. Pl. 273; 2 Hawk. P. C. 840; 8 Fairfield 861; 15 Maine 476. That averment is not descriptive in a sense which requires that it be proved. If it were struck out the indictment would stand good.

¶3The nuisance complained of being within this State, it is not important that the dam which occasioned it was in the State of Maine.

¶4Judgment on the verdict.

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