"Circumstantial evidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... note, I reflected deeply upon the tragic event—her suicide. Innocent as I was of her death, might I not be arrested as her murderer?[B] Circumstances were strong against me; how could I prove my innocence? Many men have been hung on circumstantial evidence less strong. Though I had escaped detection on a murder which I had actually committed, I now feared that I should suffer for a deed of which I was not guilty. The gallows arose before my excited fancy, in all its terrors; my throat seemed encircled by the fatal rope.—I ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... persisted in her account of the vision; consequently the accused was taken up, and, with some circumstantial evidence in addition to the woman's story, committed for trial by two magistrates—my father, Colonel Robert Browne, and ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... not yet examined," replied the Sub-Prior. "If it only rest on the suppositions of this old couple, in one of whom it is pretty evident, prejudice is stronger than clearly defined truth, methinks that, despite this circumstantial evidence, there is still hope of the prisoner's innocence, more especially as we have one other important fact to bring forward. You are certain," he continued, addressing old Pedro, "that the bell chimed ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... girl's dying father told her of the looted bank account of Grimes & Morrell. The cash assets of the firm had suddenly disappeared. Circumstantial evidence pointed at Prince Morrell. His partner and Starkweather, who had a small interest in the firm, showed their doubt of him. The creditors were clamorous and ugly. The ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... these shameful fabrications was continued for hours, and Madame, who had thoroughly prepared herself for it, brought one bit of circumstantial evidence after another to prove her suspicions. The wretched husband was worked to a fury of jealous anger not to be controlled. "I will search every cottage in Pittendurie," he said in a rage. "I will find Sophy, and then ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... smaller upon the left hand door-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant's fist grasping a fragment of a skewer, and displaying the word 'Office,' it was clear that Mr Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind; and the fact, if it required any further circumstantial evidence, was abundantly demonstrated by the diurnal attendance, between the hours of half-past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who sat upon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler's pantry at the end of the passage, and always ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... as much brass as would make a dour knocker," he said. "But, see here, the next time yous are on the war pad don't be lavin' circumstantial evidence behind ye." He brought out from behind the door an old rag doll, ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... belligerently, the stubbornness now rampant in his soul, 'you are mistaken, that is all. You and I disagree upon one point; you condemn Mrs. Murray outright, because of certain purely circumstantial evidence against her. That is the way of hot-headed youth. I, being mature, even-minded and clear-eyed, maintain that one accused must be given every opportunity to prove himself innocent. When you say that Mrs. Murray ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... 'Famous Trials' is to take a given topic, like forgery, confessions, mistaken identity or circumstantial evidence and to illustrate the points best worth remembering by some actual and interesting case in which they ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... dwelt. Yorba, Ybarronda, Ybaez, Ybarra—yes, that was it: Ybarra, sure enough, and the first name was Francisco, it seemed to me; and I felt sure now that it was at San Fernando that Robinson encountered him. All circumstantial evidence, no doubt, but highly interesting. To try another link—did the scraps of writing give any support to my idea? I took out my notebook: unmistakably there were the letters "rra" remaining where naturally the signature would be written. All the rest of the name was gone except a fragment ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... preliminary inquiry, the stoppage of the watch at half-past eight, was taken as offering good circumstantial evidence that the blow which had killed the man had been ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... promise imagined by a correspondent to French newspapers, but never given by the inquisitors themselves. And as there is no proof that they have yet abstained from torture, there is a large amount of circumstantial evidence that they have delighted themselves in death. And why not? When public burnings became inexpedient—as at Goa—did they not make provision ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... Monsieur clasped in his hand the insignia of the Holy Ghost, which he wore about his neck, and took the most solemn oath that he was both directly and indirectly innocent of the death of his wife. Still the circumstantial evidence was so strong against him that he could ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the overwhelming evidence against me; I considered it even in the tempest and whirlwind of my anguish, and never once blamed and never once was angry with my husband; for I knew—not life, but the terrible circumstantial evidence had ruined me!" ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Militari, l. ii. c. 6. His positive testimony, which might be supported by circumstantial evidence, ought surely to silence those critics who refuse the Imperial legion its proper body of cavalry. Note: See also Joseph. B. J. iii. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... found me guilty; to the prosecutor, Mr. Wallscourt; to the Secretary of State; to the King. A little subsequent reflection, however, showed me the utter hopelessness of any such proceeding, as I had still only my simple, unsupported assertions to oppose to the strong array of positive and circumstantial evidence against me; that, therefore, no such applications as I contemplated could be listened to for a moment. Eventually satisfied of this, I came to the resolution of submitting quietly to my fate in the meantime, trusting that some circumstance or other would, sooner or later, occur that would ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... no doubt of that. It would be impossible to find a stronger case of circumstantial evidence," said Caldew earnestly. "But here is a piece of direct evidence. Look here!" He produced the little brooch from his pocket and placed it on the table beside the revolver and the handkerchief. "This is the brooch I told you about. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Circumstantial evidence is not always conclusive. But certain kinds of it cannot be disputed. In the following colloquy the policeman appears to have the ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... As usual I arrived nowhere in an argument with Kennedy. "Circumstantial evidence ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... "We have plenty of circumstantial evidence," returned Beth. "There is only one way to explain the facts we have already learned, and the theory we have built up will be a hard one to overthrow. The flight of Captain Wegg to this place, his unhappy wife, the great trouble that old Nora has ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... singularly miserable and rainy afternoon, there might have been seen a dark object moving very slowly across the uninteresting field of vision. At a distance it would not have been very easy to make out the nature of the thing, and a newcomer to the scene, with no local knowledge of circumstantial evidence to guide him, would have hesitated between a buffalo or a hippopotamus and finally given a vote in favour of it being some slime-crawling saurian that we come across in pictures of antediluvian ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... saying that in spite of the overwhelming circumstantial evidence, and in spite of the fact that he has run away, Charles ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... the time why they greeted me so heartily. Now, of course, it is plain enough; and now, just after this blowing-up business, here am I caught with four notorious conspirators, and mixed up in a fight in which eight or ten policemen are killed, and the roof blown off a house. That would be circumstantial evidence enough to condemn a man ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... capital story for boys. It teaches honesty, integrity, and friendship, and how best they can be promoted. It shows the danger of hasty judgment and circumstantial evidence; that right-doing pays, and ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... Saracinesca loved Corona he would not seriously think of marrying Donna Tullia. He had done all he could to strengthen the passion when he guessed it was already growing, and at the very moment when he had received circumstantial evidence of it which placed it beyond all doubt, he had allowed himself to be discovered, through his own ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... he has in speaking; the original impulse that urged him forward is forgotten in so wide a field, in so interminable a career. If he can, others cannot carry all he knows in their heads at the same time; a rope of circumstantial evidence does not hold well together, nor drag the unwilling mind along with it (the willing mind hurries on before it, and grows impatient and absent)—he moves in an unmanageable procession of facts and ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... exactly know," was the stranger's faltering response. "I was told by a friend of his that it was a serious one, and that he might find it extremely difficult to prove himself innocent. The circumstantial evidence against ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... all three men first through the body and then through the head to make sure. There was no human witness to the event. But when these men did not turn up at the next point on the trail, and O'Brien did, the Police began rapid investigation. If there were no eye-witnesses in the case a web of circumstantial evidence would have to be woven around the figure of the fourth man of the party if the facts that would emerge justified it. This was done with consummate skill but with absolute fairness by the Mounted Police, Inspector Scarth, officer commanding at Fort Selkirk, being the directing ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... suspicion had pointed to her. Possibly the vague confessions, implicating no one, which he had made to Mrs. Miller, taken in connection with events of which he had no knowledge, had proved sufficient to weave a chain of circumstantial evidence about her; and now the commanding officer was aroused, and was coming down on him, and poor Mac yonder, for full details of their losses and their knowledge of the affair. He would give anything to secure ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... strange case of the man in lower ten, I have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can build up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your faith in circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. I never see a shivering, white-faced wretch in the prisoners' dock that I do not hark back with shuddering horror to the strange events on the Pullman car Ontario, between Washington and Pittsburg, on the night of September ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he reached the village he learned the dreadful tale of the murder, and though he did not like to believe Anthony guilty, he knew not how to get satisfactorily over the great mass of circumstantial evidence, which even his own letter contained against him. Every person with whom he talked upon the subject held the same opinion, and many who before had execrated the old man, and spoke with abhorrence of his conduct to his son, now mentioned him with pity and respect, and decried ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... and painful. It afterwards transpired that the bishop pleaded in Alfgar's favour, while Herstan ably seconded him; but all was in vain. Edric's eloquence, and the strong circumstantial evidence against the prisoner, carried the day, and the ealdorman even proposed that execution should be speedy, "lest," he whispered, "Canute should interfere ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... "You know your own opinion of the thing," he replied after a pause. "You've circumstantial evidence enough to see the squire, and set others to work on it; and," he added significantly, "you've done your share then, and can wipe ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... Defoe's last works in connection with journalism was to write a prospectus for a new weekly periodical, the Universal Spectator, which was started by his son-in-law, Henry Baker, in October, 1728. There is more than internal and circumstantial evidence that this prospectus was Defoe's composition. When Baker retired from the paper five years afterwards, he drew up a list of the articles which had appeared under his editorship, with the names of the writers attached. ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... as far as the famous Shingleville raid ever got. Daly did his best to collect even circumstantial evidence against the participants, but in vain. He could not even get anyone to say that a single member of the village of Carpenter had absented himself from town that morning. This might have been from loyalty, or it might have been from fear of the vengeance the Fighting ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... 'A tangle of circumstantial evidence which is supposed to be conclusive, but on which we feel confident that no English ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood to beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... were all up before the general the next day, but swore ourselves clear, all except Tim, who had the circumstantial evidence ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... madame," replied Monte Cristo; "the waistcoat and the letter were both what is termed circumstantial evidence; I therefore sent them to the king's attorney. You understand, my dear baron, that legal methods are the safest in criminal cases; it was, perhaps, some plot against you." Andrea looked steadily at Monte Cristo and disappeared in the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... believe that a little is as good as a feast—perhaps better. If one has a taste for that kind of thing the merest starting-point becomes a coign of vantage, and then by a series of logically deducted verisimilitudes one arrives at truth—or very near the truth—as near as any circumstantial evidence can do. I have not studied de Barral but that is how I understand him so far as he could be understood through the din of the crash; the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the newspaper contents bills, 'The Thrift Frauds. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... young man. The thing that impressed me most about him, aside from the prepossession in his favour due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that he was receiving. Leland, we learned, had been very active. By prompt work at the time of the young doctor's arrest he had managed to secure the ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... thief; carbon copies of all his correspondence in the case, the original of all letters received, the photograph of the check—everything, in fact, to prove a most conclusive case through the medium of a well-ordered and amazing chain of optical and circumstantial evidence. This evidence he sent to Miss Brent, Port Agnew, Washington, and she received it about a week before I married her. Consequently, she was in position to prove to the most captious critic that she was a woman of undoubted virtue, the innocent victim of ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... as to how it happened, come in to the library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial evidence. Most extraordinary ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... something in Carlen's confident belief which communicated itself to John's mind, and, coupled with the fact that there was certainly only circumstantial evidence against Wilhelm, slowly brought him to sharing her belief and tender sorrow. But they were alone in this belief and alone in their sorrow. The verdict of the community was unhesitatingly, ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... in Ireland."[294] The Scot who first advocated common action with the Irish malcontents should have paid good heed to his steps. Muir did not do so. Accordingly, though the direct evidence at the trial told in his favour, the circumstantial evidence weighed heavily against him.[295] At such a time men's actions count for more than their words. It was the visit to Paris and the dealings with the United Irishmen, far more than biassed witnesses and the bullying of Braxfield, which led to ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... regard as a typical instance of the value of a chain of good circumstantial evidence, with no essential link lacking. Direct testimony could hardly have been more satisfactory, all things considered; and yet direct testimony is the best sort there is, in the law courts and out. On the other hand, hearsay evidence is viewed legally and often ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... are blacker than themselves: and being near to the plantation, they posted to the English, and entreated their aid to conjure this devil to his own place, who finding him to be a poor wandering blackamore, conducted him to his master."[261] This was in 1633. It is circumstantial evidence of a twofold nature; i.e., it proves that there were Negroes in the colony at a date much earlier than can be fixed by reliable data, and that the Negroes were slaves. It is a fair presumption that this "wandering blackamore" who was conducted ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... It is true there must be distinct proof, sufficient to satisfy the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that homicide has been committed by some one, before the admission of the accused that he did the act can be considered. But I think that fact can be established by circumstantial evidence, as well as any other fact in the case, and I shall so charge the jury. I will give you an exception. Mr Nathan Goodbody, you may go on with your defense after the hearing of the next witness, which is now ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Government, by the Government to the President, by the President to a Committee, and by the Committee to Parliament. Towards this statement the police have already obtained important testimony, and a complete chain of circumstantial evidence has been prepared. But they lack one link of positive proof, and until that link is obtained the Attorney-General is unable to proceed. It is the keystone of the arch, the central fact, without which all other facts fall to pieces—the testimony ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... my dear," he said; "you must not say that. I cannot allow you to make such an assertion as that. Circumstantial evidence often points to an innocent person. If Mr. Dunbar had been in any way concerned in this matter, he would have made a point of seeing you, in order to set your suspicions at rest. His declining to ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... not delude himself as to the bits of circumstantial evidence that might be used to piece out that ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Springfield, that the nation must be all free or all slave, was not new with him. The men who framed the constitution acted under the same idea, though they may not have so distinctly expressed the truth. There is, however, abundant circumstantial evidence that they so believed, and that their only hope for the country was based on the then reasonable expectation that slavery would disappear, and that the nation would be all free. It was reserved for modern political ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a lot of circumstantial evidence that's what it is," said Tom. "I admit it might look suspicious to anyone who didn't know us, but Andy Foger has certainly done the most mischief by his ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... feverish, he went to Whitford, almost infected by Henry's forebodings and Mr. Bramshaw's misgivings. 'It is a bad case,' the attorney had said to him, confidentially. 'But that there is always a great reluctance to convict upon circumstantial evidence, I should have very little hope, that story of his is so utterly impracticable; and yet he looks so innocent and earnest all the time, and sticks to it so consistently, that I don't know what to make of it. I can't do anything with him, nor can his brother either; but perhaps you might make ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of getting him off legally if we go at it from a negative standpoint?" asked the colonel. "I mean, Mr. Kenneth, if we call upon the prosecution to make out their best case, which they can do only by circumstantial evidence, and then put our man on the stand, to deny everything, to have him tell about the noise in the night, about the curious sensation he experienced, about the possibility of chloroform, call witnesses as to his good character—and ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... appealed to Dickens. It must not, however, be urged; and the crucial question after all is concerned with the opium woman as one of the unconscious instruments of justice, aiding with her trifle of circumstantial evidence the Nemesis awaiting Jasper. ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... control,—accidents of birthplace, in the choosing of which we had no voice. The high in the world do not shine altogether by their own light, not do the lowly grovel altogether in their own debasement,—I felt the excuse for humanity. I was overwhelmed with one feeling,—only God can weigh such circumstantial evidence; we, in our little knowledge of results, pronounce sentence, but final judgment is reserved for a higher court, that sees the cross-purposes in which we are blindly caught. So with everything. Below me prayed Christian and Jew, Mohammedan and Brahmin, idolater and agnostic. Why was ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... I had lied to Paddock about him, and the whole thing looked desperately fishy. If I made a clean breast of it and told the police everything he had told me, they would simply laugh at me. The odds were a thousand to one that I would be charged with the murder, and the circumstantial evidence was strong enough to hang me. Few people knew me in England; I had no real pal who could come forward and swear to my character. Perhaps that was what those secret enemies were playing for. They ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... don't trouble yourself about that. No circumstantial evidence will shake my confidence ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... was prepared to solemnly aver that the success of an important lawsuit depended on my presence in London within the next twelve hours. I did not even shrink from the prospect of having to produce circumstantial evidence to convince Maitland of the truth of my assertion. Anything rather than undergo any further shocks ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... necessary with which to build up a strong substantial edifice of facts. It is only the Messieurs La Coqs and 'Old Sleuths' of books and illustrated weeklies that are possessed with the second sight, and can hunt down the shrewdest criminals, without being bound to such petty things as clews, circumstantial evidence or witnesses. We American detectives can generally make 4 by putting 2 and 2 together, but we must have a starting point, and an old shirt or a pair of stockings, such as this robber threw away, may contain ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... poison all your families, and their inheritance will be yours—fear nothing; you will go unpunished! You have committed murder by poisoning, it is true; but the corpus delicti will not be there because it can't be there!" This was a case, he urged, of circumstantial evidence. "We have," he said, "gone through a large number of facts. Of these there is not one that does not go directly to the proof of poisoning, and that can only be explained on the supposition of poisoning; whereas, if the theory of the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... cultivate too much, and which produces envy, malice, hatred, uncharitableness and other destructive and despoiling human traits. I have no quarrel with the character of the testimony with which it is sought to convict the defendant, for circumstantial evidence is the most reliable, the most convincing, the least subject to perjury of any evidence recognized by the law, and, as I shall undertake to demonstrate to you, it is absolutely unassailable when each link of the chain fits perfectly in every other one. I am not ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... continent, or their ancestors near or remote, had ever been civilized, even to the extent of becoming capable of settled life and organized industry. And, besides, the constant tradition of these Indians, supported by concurring circumstantial evidence, appears to warrant the belief that they came to this part of the continent originally from the west or northwest, at a period too late to connect them in this ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... from me to blacken the reputation of any bird, but there is at least circumstantial evidence that the long-crested jay, like his eastern cousin, is a nest robber; for such birds as robins, tanagers, flycatchers, and vireos make war upon him whenever he comes within their breeding districts, and this would indicate ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... conclusion for her, "how hard he makes it for us to keep him out of trouble—if that gets out. He's put his hand on the live wire of circumstantial evidence, a wire that too often thrashes about, striking ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... Tale of Circumstantial evidence. By the author of "My Shooting Box," "The Quorndon Hounds," etc. With Illustrations. Price ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the possession of the Burr-Alston connection, and is thought by them, on account of its striking family resemblance, to be a picture of Theodosia Burr. The painting story has often been scouted, but there is too much circumstantial evidence to ignore ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... total absence from palaeontological history of any hint of passage forms between the classes themselves, or between the Mollusca and their nearest allies. Nor is this hiatus confined to the Molluscan phylum; it is the same for all branches of the animal kingdom. There is circumstantial evidence that transitional forms must have existed, but of actual proof none whatever. All the classes of Mollusca appear fully fledged, as it were. No form has as yet been discovered of which it could be ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... proposition would be deemed equally inconvenient and absurd. Under such circumstances, the negro husbands took justice into their own hands. They murdered the overseer. Four innocent slaves were taken up, and upon very slight circumstantial evidence were condemned to be shot; but the real actors in this scene passed unsuspected. When the unhappy men found their companions were condemned to die, they avowed the fact, and exculpated all others from any share in the deed. Was not this true magnanimity? Can you help respecting ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... help believing me dead, George,' he said with a laugh. 'That fellow Springfield sent home and brought home all sorts of circumstantial evidence, and you naturally took things over. No, not another word. The fellow has gone, and I'll see ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... told her and Mrs. McKeon, that from the evidence of the servants it had appeared that she, Feemy, had agreed to elope with Captain Ussher; and that, as far as could be judged from circumstantial evidence, she was in fact eloping with him when Thady had killed him; now, it was necessary for her to state whether she was there of her own good will, going away with him; or if not, what she was doing at the moment of ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Pierre Lambas, had been arrested on strong suspicion, and were now in close confinement awaiting the trial which both knew would be short, sharp and swift, and administered by a judge who would not wait for legal proceedings to assist or confirm his decisions. Circumstantial evidence was strong against them, and the two unfortunate wretches were not more conscious that the sun was shining in heaven, making the narrow caboose in which they had been confined an unendurable, suffocating den of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... ministers thus enumerated, it will be seen that three—Mr. McCulloch, Mr. Welles, and Mr. Speed—might be regarded as favoring a conservative plan of reconstruction, and three—Mr. Stanton, Mr. Harlan, and Mr. Dennison—a radical plan. These positions were thus assigned from circumstantial evidence rather than from direct declarations of the gentlemen themselves. At a time so critical, responsible officials were naturally reserved and cautious in the expression of opinions. But it was instinctively perceived by close observers of public events, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... established. The fact that the victim is indeed dead must first be made certain before anyone can be convicted for her killing, because, so long as there remains the remotest doubt as to the death, there can be no certainty as to the criminal agent, although the circumstantial evidence indicating the guilt of the accused may be positive, complete, and utterly irresistible. In murder, the corpus delicti, or body of the crime, is composed ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence, and no doubt the police hoped to collect a great deal more now that they held a clue in their hands. Directly after the verdict, therefore, which was guardedly directed against some person unknown, ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... Peshawur, there was one man at least who knew Mahommed Gunga and his worth, and who refused to let himself be blinded by any sort of circumstantial evidence. The evidence was black—in black on white—written by a black-hearted schemer, and delivered by a big, fat black man, who was utterly road-weary, to the commissioner ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... noted, circumstantial evidence is not lawful: the witness must swear to what he has seen. A curious consideration, how many innocent men have been hanged by "circumstantial evidence." See vol. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... who am obstinate," he said soberly. "It is you, Miss Kate. What if I told you I had irrefutable circumstantial evidence against him? Would that turn you from your faith ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... "Well, circumstantial evidence is good enough for me to work on," retorted Ferguson. "On discovering that the telegram from Cleveland was a hoax, I concluded Ferguson might be lurking around Washington and so sent a description of him to the different precincts and secured a ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... judges may and often do disagree in regard to it. Do we not hear every day, in this court, of the most wise and able judges—of the venerated Hale himself—admonishing courts and juries not to lend a willing ear to them; at least against circumstantial evidence, which is the same thing. How many almost irresistable cases of inferences drawn from pregnant facts have been shown, in which time proved the fallacy of such inferences, and that many an innocent man has been consigned to an ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... being among the toast and cake," he went on, "would be convincing circumstantial evidence of a tragedy if it had been any other woman's head, but it doesn't count with Lorraine—I mean it doesn't represent the complete abandonment to grief which would be implied if it happened in the case of any one else. You must remember that when Lorraine wants to have a comfortable cry ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... infants, that it is as easy to train a child to be grammatical as to let it lapse into all sorts of slovenly inaccuracies that must be unlearned at school, and in society. So, when they talked of "circumstantial evidence" I had a fair inkling of what the phrase conveyed. Preciosa was upon trial for ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... say absolutely that I can clear up this mystery, but my suspicions are confirmed by a good deal of circumstantial evidence. This will not be understood unless I explain my strange infirmity. Wherever I went I used to be troubled with a presentiment that I had left my pipe behind. Often, even at the dinner-table, I paused in ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... lieutenant, it seemed, had been following a trail which he believed was leading him closer and closer to the object of the hunt, and it was in forging the links of this chain of circumstantial evidence that the young officer was led into the ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... Grant; time, your unaccounted-for disappearance during the hour when the crime was committed; and disguise, a clumsy suggestion of Owd Ben's ghost? Really, I have known men brought to the scaffold on circumstantial evidence little stronger than that. Instead of glaring at me like a cornered rat you ought to drop on your knees and thank providence, as manifested through the intelligence of the 'Yard,' that you are not now in a cell at Knoleworth, ruminating on your own stupidity, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... life—Colonel de Haldimar," proudly returned the prisoner, "although tedious and uninteresting to you, is of the utmost importance to myself; for on that do I ground the most essential part of my defence. There is nothing but circumstantial evidence against me on the two first charges; and as those alone can reflect dishonour on my memory, it is for the wisdom of this court to determine whether that evidence is to be credited in opposition to the solemn declaration of him, who, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the audacity of circumstantial evidence, the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has been censured, the nature of the favour conferred, and the respectful exultation at the receipt of it, are surely complete; it is truth ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I tried to do my faithful best for my employer. In September the blow fell. A sum of money was missing from Mr. Blair's till. I was suspected and discharged in disgrace. All my neighbors believed me guilty; even some of my own family looked upon me with suspicion—nor could I blame them, for the circumstantial evidence was strongly ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... along the road at some distance, but he was reading a paper with an expression so placid that I felt sure he had not seen us. On the seat beside him was a suitcase with the air of having been made in France; and circumstantial evidence said that Monny's ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... she said—"not only by circumstantial evidence but to a degree in fact. You must know ... now I ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... northward. It comes from the South Pole, with nothing in the way to obstruct its march and tone its energy down. I have read somewhere that an acute observer among the early explorers—Cook? or Tasman?—accepted this majestic swell as trustworthy circumstantial evidence that no important land lay to the southward, and so did not waste time on a useless quest in that direction, but changed his course ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... conclusion of this kind. We must find out what natural causes bring about variations in animals and plants; and we must also find out what kinds of variations are inherited, and how they are inherited. If the circumstantial evidence for organic evolution, furnished by comparative anatomy, embryology and paleontology is cogent, we should be able to observe evolution going on at the present time, i.e. we should be able to observe the occurrence of ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan
... piecing together and the most elaborate dove-tailing. Nevertheless, if you cast your joke upon the waters, you shall find it no joke after many days. This is what I read in the Lyttelton Times, New Zealand: "The chain of circumstantial evidence seems fairly irrefragable. From all accounts, Mr. Zangwill himself was puzzled, after carefully forging every link, how to break it. The method ultimately adopted I consider more ingenious than convincing." After that I made up my mind never to joke again, but this good intention now helps to ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... the men on the veranda marked how white his face was, and how he cursed the stable boy for being slow. It was evident that something had happened in the cave, and what with finding his match box at the scene of the crime—circumstantial evidence is pretty ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... ever to him that the inquest must be conducted with the greatest discretion, that as few facts as possible must be revealed at it. It was also clear to him that, unless the handle of the knife told a plain story, he would get nothing but circumstantial evidence, and so far he had ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... a matter of fact we know of not the slightest evidence of the existence of birds before the jurassic and perhaps the triassic formations. If there were any parallel between the Miltonic account and the circumstantial evidence, we ought to have abundant evidence in the devonian, the silurian, and carboniferous rocks. I need not tell you that this is not the case, and that not a trace of birds makes its appearance until the far later period ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... to this:" retorted his youthful friend, stoutly, "that I know nothing whatever about it. You may make out a case of strong circumstantial evidence against me; but if the lady has been carried off, I have had no ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... there then to overcome these probabilities? Confession wrung from mortal agony and unsupported by circumstantial evidence. Their enemies do, to be sure, appeal to certain circumstances, such as the identity of the extorted confession itself: true, I believe it to be so perfectly identical as to lose all character of independence. ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... village carried something under his arm, carefully covered with his sarong. My box was stolen between the hours he was seen going and returning, and it was so small as to be easily carried in the way described. This seemed pretty clear circumstantial evidence. I accused the man and brought the witnesses to the Commandant. The man was examined, and confessed having gone to the river close to my house to bathe; but said he had gone no farther, having climbed up a cocoa-nut tree and brought home two nuts, which he had covered over, because he was ashamed ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... them M. de Villevielle, a friend of Voltaire and of Condorcet. Damilaville did not sell a single copy and even had a great deal of trouble to get one for Holbach who waited for it a long time. This circumstantial evidence is of greater value than the statement of Voltaire who was in the habit of attributing anonymous works to whomever ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... type of man for a hero! And yet I do not know. Perhaps he fought harder than many a man who conquers. In the world's courts, we are compelled to judge on circumstantial evidence only, and the chief witness, the man's soul, cannot very ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... but she did know that she was not wrestling with mathematics and languages—at least not all of the time. So Marian knowing Linda's gift with a pencil, had come to the conclusion that she was drawing pictures; but circumstantial evidence was all she had as a basis for her conviction. Linda went her way silently and alone. She was acquainted with everyone living in Lilac Valley, frank and friendly with all of them; aside from Marian she had no intimate friend. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... but by Mabel Dunham, on the branch of a tree on this very island, just an hour or so before the attack of the enemy; and if ye'll be at the trouble to look at the fly of the Scud's ensign, ye'll just say that the cloth has been cut from out it. Circumstantial evidence was never stronger." ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... from merely circumstantial evidence, but a combination of accusing circumstances certainly pointed to the prisoner; and following their guidance, I am responsible for her arrest and detention for trial. To the scrutiny of the Court I have submitted every fact that influenced my action, and the estimate of their value ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... with breathless interest. Step by step all that was laid down in the opening speech for the prosecution was inexorably proved, all, that is to say, except the affair of the stick. But from what a certain witness (Mr. Taynton) swore to, it was clear that this piece of circumstantial evidence, which indeed was of the greatest importance since the Crown's case was that the murder had been committed with that bludgeon of a stick, completely broke down. Whoever had done the murder, he had not done it with that ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... formalities which should be required in regard to contracts and wills; and the mode of recording judicial and other official decisions and registering births, deaths, and marriages. In Books v. and vi. we consider two kinds of evidence which is in one way or other of inferior cogency, namely, 'circumstantial evidence,' in which the evidence if accepted still leaves room for a process of more or less doubtful inference; and 'makeshift evidence,' such evidence as must sometimes be accepted for want of the best, of which the most ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... know that the man would try to fix a murder on him, himself? Useless for him to speak, to deny. The revolver-shot and the cruel little bullet (which showed there were others who possessed that sort of fire-arm besides himself) proved too easily, upon the circumstantial evidence theory at all events, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew |
