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in testimony from which the circumstances are intended to be estab-
lished ; errors in the inferences and conclusions which we draw
from them after we have collected them.
Take the most simple case we can possibly put, Suppose a man is
seen killed upon the side-walk. Suppose a watchman comes, and
swears that be saw a man running away. A second swears, that, the
house being pointed out to him, he went in, and arrested a man who
appeared to be out of breath. A third comes, to say that he after-
wards found blood on some clothes belonging to the prisoner. Take
the first witness. He may be mistaken about the man, and about the
house, and he may lie;- three. chances of error. The second may be
mistaken about the man whom he arrested, or the house which he
thought was pointed out, or he may lie; - three more chances of error.
And the third may be able to detect blood or not, and he may be mis-
taken about his statement whether the clothes were those of the pris-
oner, or he may lie, too. Here are all these accurnuiated chances
of error. And then, when they are all proved, correct conclu.
sions are to be drawn from them. It may be that he did commit
murder. It may be that he was an innocent man, who was running
along that way; it may be that he ran away from terror, at seeing
such a blow struck; it may be he was a friend of the deceased.
I put this as a simple case ; and yet you see how great the chances
of error are. But when you come to such a case as this, there is no
telling to what a height those chances reach.
It is, Gentlemen, necessary also to remember, as I apprehend - cer-
tainly it is not the least important part of this evidence-that we are
always drawing incorrect conclusions; and hence the number of in-
nocent persons who have suffered from circumstantial proofs have
lost their lives, so far as we can judge, from cases made up from incor.
rect inferences; not so much from paucity on the part of witnesses, as
from the incorrect inferences drawn by the jurors.
Take that most common of all cases, cited continually : where an
uncle and a niece lived together; and the niece, one evening, was
heard crying out, begging him not to kill her. On the next morning,
she had disappeared. He, being charged with the deed, and being
put to his wit's end, found another girl to simulate his niece. The
deception was found out, and the man was convicted and hanged.
But it afterwards appeared that the niece came back, having only run
away. Here were these circumstances laid before conscientious jurors;
circumstances proved by conscientious witnesses. But they erred.
He who is arrested with stolen goods in his possession has to an.
swer for it. It implies a theft. There is an old and well-established
case, in illustration of this, where a man, who had stolen a horse, got
a countryman to hold him, knowing he was pursued. Presently, the
constable came up, and arrested the countryman. Here was a plain
case. He was found with the stolen property in his possession, im-
mediately after the theft had taken place; and he was hanged for it.
There is another instance.
I am induced to dwell upon this for a moment, because I am per-
fectly aware that there are certain opinions, that circumstantial evi-
dence is necessarily correct, and that circumstances cannot lie, and
various other sayings, that are totally false ; sayings which probably
applied to the circumstances in connection with which they were first
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