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INDIES INDIGO 249 distinct allegation. In general a mistake in the name is fatal, though a mere misspelling of it, if the sonnd be rendered aright, may not vitiate the indictment. If several joined in the commission of the offence, as in assault or robbery, all may be joined in the bill, or each may be indicted separately. Yet when the crime is in its nature distinct and individual, as perjury or the utterance of blasphemous or seditious words, there can be no joinder, though several were guilty of the same offence. The time and place of every material fact must be distinctly averred. Generally, however, it is not necessary to prove the commission of the offence at the precise place and time laid. It is sufficient if it appear to have been commit- ted within the jurisdiction of the court, and on any day previous to the finding of the bill, if that fall within the period during which the offence may be prosecuted. But if the time or place is an essential element of the crime, a variance in either respect between the charge and the proof is fatal. If it be necessary to cite written instruments, their dates must be truly stated. The date is also material when a period for preferring indictments is pre- scribed by law, or when statutes of limitations are involved. In the statement of the offence, the indictment must recite explicitly the facts which constitute the alleged crime, and not merely their supposed legal bearing. It is the simple office of the bill to exhibit the facts. If there be sufficient to constitute the crime charged, that will be judicially recognized by the court as their legal consequence. A par- ticular offence must be alleged. To charge the defendant with one of two offences dis- junctively, as " forged or caused to be forged," is insufficient ; and so it is to describe him as a general offender, as "common thief" or "common slanderer." Yet one may be in- dicted as a " common barretor," or as a " keep- er of a common bawdy house," for in these cases the habitual character makes the particu- lar offence. In the description of some crimes certain technical words and terms must be em- ployed ; thus, " traitorously " in indictments for treason, and " feloniously " in all charges of felony ; " kill and murder " in charging murder, and " took and carried away " in a case of simple larceny. In indictments under statutes it is sufficient to describe the offence in the words of the statute. The indictment must conclude in the prescribed form, where that is given by the state constitution. It is generally in the words, " against the peace and dignity " of the state or commonwealth. INDIES, East. See EAST INDIES, and INDIA. INDIES, West. See ANTILLES, and WEST IN- DIES. INDIGO, a vegetable dyestnff, known to the ancients by the name of indicum, from its being brought into Europe from India. The same name appears to have been applied to India ink also, but in this case usually quali- fied by the epithet niyrum. So little was known of the real nature of this substance, which for centuries had been employed in painting and dyeing, that as late as the year 1705 it was spoken of as a mineral in letters patent issued in Halberstadt, Germany. The use of indigo in dyeing was probably intro- duced into Italy as early as the llth century. With the establishment of direct trade with India by sea, supplies of it were more easily obtained, and after the discovery of America a similar product was brought from the new world. Francisco Hernandez speaks of it as in use by the Mexicans, the pigment being called mohuitli and tleuohuilli, signifying the same as the Latin name for it, cceruleum. In the beginning of the 17th century the importations of indigo from the East Indies into Holland assumed no little importance. In 1631 there was brought by seven vessels 333,545 Ibs., es- timated to be worth $500,000. Its introduc- tion caused great complaint by the Germans on account of its superseding the indigenous Indigofera tinctoria. woad. Its use was prohibited by the diet in 1577, and it was denounced under the name of the devil's dye as a pernicious, deceitful, corrosive substance. The people of Nurem- berg, who cultivated'woad, enacted a law com- pelling the dyers to take an oath annually not to use indigo, and this they were still obliged to do long after the dye was in universal use. By the French government the use of indigo was forbidden in the province of Languedoc in 1598, and the law was long enforced. A similar outcry was raised against it in England in the reign of Elizabeth, and in 1581 it was condemned by act of parliament, and persons were authorized to search for and destroy it and logwood also in any dye house. This law remained in force nearly a century. Indigo is a product of numerous plants belonging to the order leguminosa, and indigenous to the tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and America. The genus indigofera contains about 220 spe-