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EDWARD D. WORRELL. 115

against this character of evidence by parading before you the
ease of the servant girl who was executed in England for the
murder of her mistress, when the homicide in fact was com-
mitted by another. He has also quoted one or two other
eases in which innocent persons charged with the commission
of high crime have been convicted upon circumstances, These
eases are mentioned in the books as having occurred at an
early period, and are as familiar to the law student as the
story of ‘Mother Hubbard’? is to the school boy in his apron.
Upon all prosecutions for murder, in which the State has to
rely chiefly upon circumstantial evidence, they are galvanized
into life and held 42 terrorem over the heads of jurors, Upon
examination of these cases it will be found that but few cir-
cumstances tending to establish guilt, were proved, Take, for
instance, the case of the servant girl charged with the murder
of her mistress. The proof was that the only persons found
im the house were the murdered mistress and the prisoner;
the doors and lower windows were found closed and secure
and upon the presumption that no other person could have
had access to the house, but herself, she was convicted and
executed. No motive whatever was shown for the perpetra-
tion of the crime, and it did not even appear in evidence
that any difficulty had eecurred between her and her mis-
tress, The rules of law governing circumstantial evidence
were not strictly enforced in her case, for the circumstances
did not by any means exclude every other reasonable hy-
pothesis but the one eontended for by the government; for
it turned out afterwards by the confession of the murderer
that he gained access to the house by means of an upper win-
dow.

But suppose it to be true that in the history of criminal
jurisprudence some few persons have, suffered upon cireum-
stantial evidence for crimes which they did not commit; is
it not also true that for every such ease you will find ten who
have been wrongfully convicted upon positive evidence. A
long train of cireumstances well connected, each one perfectly
consistent with the others, established by different witnesses,
who have had no opportunity for concert or agreement, can-

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