An indictment may be quashed at com mon law for such deficiency in body or cap tion as will make a judgment given on it against the defendant erroneous, but it is a matter of discretion ; Bac. Abr. IncUetatent, K ; 1 Chitty, Cr. Law 298 ; Archb. Cr. Pl. 66.
After verdict in a criminal case, it will be presumed that those facts without proof of which the verdict could not have been found were proved, though they are not distinctly alleged in the indictment ; provided it con tains terms sufficiently general to compre hend them in reasonable intendment ; 2 C. & K. 868 ; 1 Tayl. Ev. §' 73 ; Steph. Cr. Proc. 171. After verdict, defective averments in the second indictment may be cured by ref erence to sufficient •averments in the first count ; 2 Den. Cr. Cas. 340. A single good count in an indictment is sufficient to sus tain a verdict of guilty and judgment there on ; Mead v. State, 53 N. J. L. 601, 23 Atl. 264 ; Hornsby v. State, 94 Ala. 55, 10 South. 522.
It is not error to join distinct offences in one indictment, in separate counts, against the same person ; Ingraham v. U. S., 155 U. S. 434, 15 Sup. Ct. 148, 39 L. Ed. 213.
In an indictment for a statutory offence, while it is doubtless true that it is not al ways sufficient to use simply the language of the statute in describing the offence, yet, if such language is, according to the natural import of the words, fully descriptive of the offence, then it ordinarily is sufficient ; Pot ter v. U. S., 155 U. S. 438, 15 Sup. Ct. 144, 39
L. Ed. 214. The general rule is that the of fence can be described in the words of the statute, and it is for the defendant to show that greater particularity is required by rea son of the omission from the statute of some element of the offense ; Armour Packing Co. v. U. S., 209 U. S. 84, 28 Sup. Ct. 428, 52 L. Ed. 681.
The fact that a grand jury has ignored an indictment is not a bar to the subsequent finding of a true bill for the same offence ; U. S. Y. Martin, 50 Fed. 918. The finding of an indictment must appear from the order book of the court in which defendant was indicted ; if it does not so appear, a verdict against him will be set aside ; Simmons v. Com., 89 Va.'156, 15 S. E. 386 ; Goodson v. State, 29 Fla. 511, 10 South. 738, 30 Am. St. Rep. 135. The fact that the foreman of the grand jury in signing his name to the in dorsement of "a true bill" used his initials instead of his full Christian name, is not ground for quashing the indictment ;Zim merman v. State, 4 Ind. App. 583, 31 N. E. 550 ; State v. Orrick, 106 Mo. 111, 17 S. W. 176, 329. One cannot be convicted of a high er degree of offence than that charged in the indictment ; MeCollough v. State, 132 Ind. 427, 31 N. E. 1116 ; but there may be a con viction of a lesser offence ; Brown v. State, 31 Fla. 207, 12 South. 640.