_ UNITED STATES v. FORD. y 29
specifically set forth and described, for a general description, reasonably
including the series, will be sufficient, as certainty to a certain intent in
general is all that is required in an indictment in such cases.
This class of cases includessuch offenses as common barratry, common
scolds, keeping a gaminghouse, a disorderly house, a house of ill fame,
the carrying on the business of a retail liquor-dealer without paying the
special tax, and other offenses of a like nature, where continuous acts '
and duration of time enter into and constitute crime. U. S. v. Howard,
12 Myers, Fed. Dec. §2402. There are other special and peculiar of-
fenses referred to and explained in U S. v. Gooding, 12 Wheat. 460;
The King v. Higgins, 2 East, 5; U S. v. Simmons, 96 U. S. 360; but they
only form exce tions to the general and salutary rule of the common
law, that ajnindictment must contain allegations of the facts necessary
to constitute the criminal charge preferred, expressed with reasonable
precision, directness, and fullness, so as to enable the person accused to
avail himself of such legal defenses as may be in his power.
There is another class of cases which do not come within this general
rule as to the sufficiency ofindictments:
" When a statute makes a particular act an offense, and sufficiently describes
it by terms having a definite and specific meaning, without specifying the
means of doing the act, it is enough to charge the act itself without its attend-
ant circumstances." State v. George, 93 N. C. 567, and cases cited. _
The indictment in the case before us charges the offense in the words
of the section of the United States Revised Statutes (3177) upon which
it is based; but such words are not sufficient, as they do not define the
offense with proper accuracy forcertainty of allegation in an indictment.
The words "did forcibly attempt to rescue " import some means of un-
lawful violence; but they do not distinctly specify any act done. The
offense alleged is substantially an attempt to commit a forcible tremass by
endeavoring to retake property that had been duly seized, and was then
in the proper custody of the officers of thelaw. In a civil suitfor a
trespass the words "with force and arms " are sufficient in a declaration,
but they are not sufiicient in an indictment for a "forcible trespass." In
such a case it must be charged and proved that there was such force, or
show of force, as was well calculated to prevent or overcome any resist-
ance on the. part of the person whose rights were thus violently invaded.
The offense alleged in thiscase is not purely statutory, but has rela-
tion for certainty of description to the definition of a similar offense at
the common law. Upon this subject the supreme court of the United
States says, in Ur S. v. Carll, 105 U. S. 611: ..
"In an indictment upon a statute it is not sufficient to set forth the offense
in the words of the statute, unless those words of themselves fully, directly,
and expressly, without any uncertainty or ambiguity, set forth all the elements
necessary to constitute the odense intended to he punished; and the fact that
the statute in question, read in the light of the common law, and of other stat-
utes of the like matter, enables the court to infer the intent of the legislature,
does not dispense with the n·ecessity of alleging in the indictment all the facts
necessary to bring the case within that intent. " . ·.