Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1882 — Lost Confidence. [ARTICLE]

Lost Confidence.

To be “exactly like” does not prove that a thing is identical. Circumstantial evidence is not-the most trutsworthy evidence. A lawyer in central New York gives the following as an illustra tion: My client sued a neighbor for the alleged killing of a favorite dog. The proof consisted in the mysterious disappearance of the animal, and the possession of a dog's skin by the defendant, which after considerable argument, was brought into court as au evidence. It was marked in a singular manner, and. was positively identified, with many tears, by the plaintiff's wife and daughter as the undoubted integment of the deceased Bose. In summing up to the jury, I was in he midst of a highly-colored picture of he virtues of the deceased, and of the love of the children for their four-footed friend, when I was interrupted by a slight disturbance in the crowd near the door of the little school-house which served as court house. Looking around, I saw my client’s youngest son, a tow-headed urchin of twelve, coming forward with a dog whose skin was the exact counterpart of the one put in evidence. The dog wagged his tail with good-natured composure and the boy cried, in his childish treble, — “Paw, Bose has come home.” I gathered up my law books and retreated, and I have never had perfect confidence in circumstantial evidence since.