¶1 The warrant substantially follows the statute, and this has been held sufficient in a charge for failure to work the public roads. S. v. Covington, 125 N. C., 642.
¶2 It notifies the defendant that the accusation against him is a failure to-work a particular road in August, 1914, upon which he was due road service, after legal warning by the overseer, and falls within the principle declared in S. v. Moore, 166 N. C., 288, that “Criminal aecusátions, whether in the form of warrants or indictments, must fix and determine the identity of the offense with such particularity as to enable the accused to know exactly what he has to meet, and to avail himself of the conviction or acquittal as a bar to a further prosecution arising out of the'same facts, and when these requirements are met, the rights of the accused are properly and sufficiently safeguarded.”
¶3 The cases relied on by the defendant can easily be distinguished from this.
¶4 In Smith’s case, 98 N. C., 747, the warrant did not charge in terms or informally that the defendant had been assigned and was liable to road duty on the road described, nor that he had been duly summoned as prescribed by statute. The conclusion reached by the Court was that a warrant that simply charged that “the defendant failed to work as a hand in Swift Creek Township” did not charge a criminal offense.
¶5 Woodard v. McCullough, 23 N. C., 432, was a civil action for the recovery of a penalty, and the Court decided that there was no evidence that the lands of the defendant were in any district assigned to the overseer.
¶6 In the case at bar there is evidence that the defendant lived on the section of the road of which Johnson was overseer, and that he (Johnson) had charge of the lands on which the defendant lived.
¶7 In Woodley’s case, 47 N. C., 276, the defendant was indicted for violating a statute against concealing and transporting slaves.
¶8 In Pool’s case, 106 N. C., 698, the warrant did not specify in what county the' offense was committed, nor was the road described with reasonable certainty; neither did it appear in the warrant that the prosecutor was the overseer of the road, nor that the defendant was assigned and was liable for duty, nor that the defendant had not paid the $1.
¶9 In Green’s case, 151 N. C., 729, the warrant failed to allege that the defendant was assigned to and was liable to work the particular road.
¶10 It is not necessary to .charge that the defendant was an able-bodied man between the ages of 18 and 45. These are matters of defense. S. v. Smith, 157 N. C., 587; S. v. Yoder, 132 N. C., 1111.
¶11 *150 Tbe contention principally relied on by tbe defendant, under tbe exception to. tbe refusal to charge tbe jury to return a verdict of not guilty upon tbe whole evidence, is that tbe evidence on tbe part of tbe State shows that tbe defendants produced certificates that they bad performed their road service.
¶12 Tbe difficulty about this position is that there is a conflict of evidence on tbe material fact whether tbe certificate covered tbe time when tbe defendants were notified to work, and we must assume that this question was fairly submitted to tbe jury, as tbe charge is not a part of tbe record.
¶13 Tbe evidence on tbe part of tbe State tended to prove that tbe defendants were notified to work in August, 1914, and that tbe certificate was for work from August, 1913, to August, 1914.
¶14 Tbe other grounds of tbe exception are not tenable. Tbe witness Johnson testified, without objection, that be was overseer of Section 11, and it was competent for him to say that tbe defendants lived on that road.
¶15 ■ He also testified that be gave to tbe defendants two or three days notice, and that be told them a certain day to come, and where, and that they agreed to do so, and this agreement to work, without objection, is some evidence, in tbe nature of an admission, that they were liable for tbe road service demanded of them.
¶16 We have carefully considered tbe exceptions, and find no error in tbe trial.
¶17 No error.