racter, and we may reasonably hope, in course of time, to see punishment by death wholly abrogated. We are covinced that crime will decrease in the same ratio as the severity of the punishment; and of this consequence there is evidence in all our old criminal reports. While looking from time to time into the various mysterious and startling cases, which are narrated in the judicial records of different countries, we have made, in our mind, a classification of these cases, which we now propose to adopt, and we divide them thus:

1st. Cases in which convictions for murder have been had on circumstantial evidence, and in which, though confession was eventually made by the convict, there could exist no moral doubt of his guilt.

2nd. Cases in which the correctness of the conviction might be reasonably doubted, and has been doubted by various writers.

3rd. Cases in which it had been subsequently discovered that the conviction, though apparently had on the clearest grounds, was wrong. And we shall add to these a notice of a few of the most remarkable cases we have been able to meet with; in which the discovery of the assassin (his guilt frequently confirmed by his own subsequent confession), was owing to apparently fortuitous, but really Providental, circumstances, and others in which no clue to the real perpetrator was ever had.

Before proceeding to the examination of these cases, we may be pardoned a few words on the nature and force of circumstantial evidence, as distinguished from positive.

The latter, as its name implies, is that evidence which is given by a witness who swears distinctly and positively to the commission of the act or crime forming the subject of the trial or investigation.

Circumstantial, or presumptive evidence, is that conclusion which the jury draw or construct and arrange for themselves from a number of circumstances or minor facts, sworn to by the various witnesses examined on the trial.

It has been of late years rather a favorite theme with members of the legal profession to enlarge upon the certainty of circumstantial evidence. Circumstances, they say, cannot lie, but it seems to be forgotten that the narration of circumstances is obtained from witnesses who may,

and, even if the circumstances be all truly stated, the application of these circumstances may be wholly false. We shall show, bye and bye, cases in which the circumstances seemed not only to warrant the presumption of the guilt of a particular individual, but even to exclude the possibility of his innocence, and yet in these cases the guilt of another, or at least the innocence of the accused, was subsequently established beyond possibility of doubt.

From one circumstance positively sworn to by a witness, the inference to be drawn is generally obvious, but the conclusion to be deduced from a long train of circumstances is not always equally plain; it then becomes a matter of judgment, an exercise of understanding, and the single circumstance will generally be defficient in weight, and consequently powerful to a limited extent; the chain of circumstances though of considerable weight, involves the serious question of applicability to the issue.

A good deal of what we think an ill-founded opinion of the cogency of circumstantial evidence, appears to have arisen from certain passages in the charge of Mr. Justice Buller on the occasion of the trial of Captain Donnellan, for the murder of Sir Theodosius Broughton, to which we shall presently more fully advert. His words are these: "A presumption which necessarily arises from circumstances is very often more convincing and more satisfactory than any other kind of evidence: it is not within the reach and compass of human abilities to invent a train of circumstances which shall be so connected together as to amount to a proof of guilt, without affording opportunities of contradicting a great part, if not all, of these circumstances."

This is hardly in accordance with the opinions of eminent jurists; Mascardus, no mean authority, has the following:"Probatio per evidentiam rei omnibus est potentior, et inter omnes ejus generis major est illa, quæ fit per testes de visu," and again :

"Probatio per presumptiones et conjecturas dici non potest vera et propria probatio.'

Menochius, who displays a certain degree of partiality for this kind of proof, says, nevertheless, "Probatio seu fides quæ testibus fit, cæteris excellet."*

• Menochius de Præsumptionibus, L. 1. q. 1.

We do not deem it necessary to refer to other writers. The same opinion is expressed by every author into whose works we have looked, indeed none has maintained the absurd doctrine that circumstances cannot lie, or that conjectural proof is superior to ocular demonstration. In the first case which we shall introduce to the reader, the evidence adduced was purely circumstantial though no doubt of a powerful character. It was sufficient to ensure the conviction of the accused, and undoubtedly most justly; nevertheless the evidence of one unimpeachable or even respectable and disinterested witness who had beheld the act committed, would have been more convincing proof, than even a greater aggregation of circumstances merely indicating the truth.

On the 5th of April, 1806, one Richard Patch was placed on his trial before Chief Baron McDonald, for the murder of Mr. Isaac Blight, a ship-broker, carrying on business at Deptford. Mr. Garrow appeared for the prosecution, Mr. Best for the prisoner, and from the statement of the former it appeared that the previous relative position of these parties was as follows:-Patch had originally been a clerk to Blight, having been introduced to the notice of the latter, through the sister of Patch, who lived as domestic servant with Blight. From a clerk at £40 a year, Patch gradually rose to a confidential position with Blight, who becoming embarrassed in his circumstances, and failing to induce his creditors to accept of a proffered composition, adopted a course of proceeding too common under such circumstances, and which was certainly not consistent with strict honesty.

To protect his property he assigned the entire of it to Patch, in consideration of a sum of £2000, which it is needless to say was not paid or intended to be paid.

The object of this contrivance appears to have been gained, for in 1805 we find Blight entering into an agrecment with Patch, by which the former was to retire wholly from participation in the business, reserving, however, to himself two-thirds of the property, Patch receiving the remaining one-third, for which he stipulated to pay a sum of £1250.

The payment of this money appears to have been the difficulty which formed the first temptation to the removal of Blight. By hook or by crook, Patchi managed to pay down

£250, and for the remaining £1000 he gave to Blight his (Patch's) draft on a Mr. Goom, who, he alleged at the time, was indebted to him, the bill falling due upon the 16th of September.

On the 19th of September, (the dates form an important portion of the evidence) Blight, went to Margate to visit his wife, and was accompanied as far as Deptford by Patch, who had previously prevailed on the bankers into whose hands the draft on Goom had been paid to hold it over till the 20th inst.

Patch having, as we have stated, parted with Blight, and seen the latter on his road to Margate, remained at the house at Deptford with the servant maid, and about 8 o'clock in the evening of the same day sent her out to purchase oysters for his supper. On her return, after a few moments' absence, she found Patch in conversation with some persons outside the house, and relating to them the fact that during the servant's absence, and while sitting alone in the front parlor, a shot was fired at him through the window shutter. To his enquiries these persons replied that they had heard the shot fired but had seen no person, a circumstance which, owing to the peculiar position of the house, appeared strange, if the assassin had made any attempt to escape.

Though professing to feel great alarm at this attempt on his life, Patch refused the offer of one of these parties to procure a person to pass the rest of the night in the house with him, and altogether displayed an indifference by no means consistent with his expressions of fear.

The shutter having been examined, it appeared manifest, from the course of the bullet, that the shot must have been fired by a person who stood at the time close to the window.

The next day was the 20th of September, the day of the maturity of the draft on Goom. This day was Saturday, and upon it Patch writes to Mr. Blight to Margate detailing the occurrence of the firing of the shot, and requesting Blight's presence in town, but making no allusion whatever to the maturity of the bill.

Upon Monday the 23rd, in compliance with Patch's request, Mr. Blight came to town, and having with Patch bestowed some attention upon the alleged attempt on the life of the latter, then turned his thoughts upon the draft on Goom and expressed his great anxiety to learn if it

would be met. Having received from Patch a positive assurance that it would be paid, he despatched him to London with the strictest injunctions not to return without the money.

In the evening Patch returned, and how he managed to satisfy Mr. Blight's anxiety must remain a mystery till that day when mystery will cease. Certain it is that they appeared that evening upon friendly terms, and about 8 o'clock had tea together, and for the first time they sat together in the back parlor.

It will be borne in mind that it was in the front parlor that Patch was sitting when the alleged attempt on his life was made, and further that Mr. Blight hardly ever occupied the back parlor, and had determined quite suddenly to do so on the night in question.

Having finished tea Mr. Blight, who was probably tired after his journey, was dozing in his chair, and Patch left the parlor, and going into the kitchen requested the maid servant to give him a candle and the key of the counting house and of another part of the premises, as he had been taken suddenly ill.

Without the means of reference to a model of the house, such as was produced at the trial, it is not easy to understand with perfect distinctness the position of the premises.

It appears, however, that the door of the kitchen was on the opposite side of the hall to, and facing that of, the back parlor, that the house was surrounded in front by a small paved yard, and that in this yard, and closely adjoining the house, the counting house and out-offices were situated.

Having opened the street door Patch passed out on his way to the counting house, his entering which was announced to the servant maid by the slamming of a door, and immediately after she heard the report of a pistol, and her master staggered into the kitchen exclaiming that he was a dead man. Dreadfully alarmed, the servant ran to shut the street door, which she saw open, and she had hardly time to turn round from doing so when Patch knocked violently at it, and, being admitted, ran as he was, his dress in some disorder, to embrace and compassionate Blight.

The next evening the unfortunate man died and an inquest was held upon his body, and a verdict of wilful murder against person or persons unknown returned.