State v. Hayes

Philips, C.

The appellant, the defendant below, was indicted and convicted in the Greene circuit court for an attempt to commit arson. The indictment in effect charged that, at Greene county, January 5th 1877, the defendant attempted to fire and burn a dwelling house owned by himself, then occupied by human beings, certain persons named. The indictment with much particularity detailed how,toward the commission of the act, the defendant put and spread coal-oil on the floor of said house, preparatory to his meditated offense, “ the said coal-oil being then and there an inflammable oil,” with the…