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39 Tex. 46

State v. Murphy

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1873

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1873-07-01

Tried below before the Hon. 'Charles Soward. Exceptions were sustained to the indictment in this ■cause by the district judge, upon the ground that the charge was too vague and general. It described the property alleged to have been stolen as “one head of •neat cattle of the value of twelve dollars.”

Decided 1873-07-01

Walker, J.

¶1An indictment for theft, which describes the stolen property as one head of neat cattle, of the value of $12, the property of C. C. Cooper, is good under our law. Perhaps, at common law greater strictness might have been required, inasmuch as the word cattle may include other domestic animals than those of the bovine genus. But in common parlance the word is restricted in its sense, and does not include sheep, goats, horses, mules, asses, and swine, although, strictly speaking, it does include all these domestic quadrupeds collectively. Shakespeare used it to include boys and women, in the line,

¶2“Boys and women are, for the most part, cattle of this color.”

¶3*47We think, however, that this question was sensibly treated in The State v. Mansfield, 33 Texas, 129, and the analogy between that case is so close to the one at bar that we hold it as authority, and reverse and remand this •case.

¶4Reversed and remanded.

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