"Circumstantial evidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... here to tell the reason why I would not convict the meanest thief on circumstantial evidence. I would rather let a thousand go free than risk with one what I risked and shudder yet to think of. There had been some public excitement that summer about mad dogs, especially spitz-dogs. A good many persons had been bitten, and the authorities of Massachusetts, if I remember ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... then carried off by two men; blood on the floor, the sill and the back fence; and the Judge had disappeared from the face of the earth. The case was clear, the jury retired, but quickly brought in a verdict of guilty, although at every point there was nothing but circumstantial evidence. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... fleck the size of a tear which their duller eyes had overlooked. It was plain to me that La Cote Male Taile had failed to see the mistress of the house. Often, how louder and clearer than any tongue, does dumb circumstantial evidence speak. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... that if he should succeed in destroying his adversary,—so long as the act was not witnessed by their associates,—so long as there should be only circumstantial evidence against him,—he would not have much to fear from such judges as they. It was simply a question as to whether the deed could be done silently and in the darkness; and that question was ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... argument to the meeting with a pithy discourse on the sacredness of human life, the weaknesses and dangers of circumstantial evidence, and the rights of the accused wherever doubt arose. Then she plunged into the evidence, stripping off the superfluous and striving to confine herself to facts. In the first place, she denied that a motive for the deed had been shown. As it ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... worm. With that deep and horrible cunning which is so often united to unprincipled ignorance, he had almost involved in his fate another vagrant with whom he had chanced to consort, and to whom he had disposed of some of the blood-bought spoils. The circumstantial evidence was so involved and interwoven, that the jury, after long and obvious hesitation as to the latter, found both guilty; and the terrible sentence of death, within forty-eight hours, was passed upon both. The culprit bore it without much ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... inspiration in these words! Nature proclaims a life beyond the grave, but Christ proves it by His resurrection. Nature gives circumstantial evidence that would seem conclusive; but Christ is the living witness whose testimony establishes beyond controversy that the mortal can put on immortality. He comforts those who mourn; He dispels the gloom by making ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... the young man who was sentenced for ninety-nine years on circumstantial evidence, and whose story is ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... supported by other proper evidence, it showed the required treasonable intention.[732] The Court in a five-to-four opinion by Justice Jackson in effect took the former view holding that "the two-witness principle" interdicted "imputation of incriminating acts to the accused by circumstantial evidence or by the testimony of a single witness,"[733] even though the single witness in question was the accused himself. "Every act, movement, deed, and word of the defendant charged to constitute treason must be supported by the testimony of two witnesses,"[734] Justice ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... far as I can see, there is not a thing you can take as a real clue. But it all looks queer, just the same. Sometimes everything will happen so things look black. That is why circumstantial evidence is always so dangerous. But all the same, ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... 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. Cross-examination of the accused. Extra special"—blazing ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... quite justified," 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
... they had been water. All 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 strong ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... charged with putting this knowledge to account in attempting to produce abortion in the case of Miss Burns, who was suspected of being pregnant by him, and thereby causing her death. Miss Burns was Mr. Angus's housekeeper, and governess to his three children. The case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence, made out against the prisoner by his conduct previous to the supposed commission of the deed, by his conduct at the time and afterwards. At the time the strongest prejudice ran against Mr. Angus, and it must be ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... of us seem to have a great deal to say, but just stood there lookin' foolish. Finally Dick came out of it an' sez, "I have been accused of cheatin' an' lyin' an' stealin'. The circumstantial evidence is all again me, so I shall have to go away, but you remember all I told you out in the other room—an' on our rides across the plain, an' on our walks in the moonlight; an' Barbie, girl, don't you believe a word ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... by the condition of the dead and other circumstantial evidence that the fight had taken place at the very beginning of the great battle—that is, on the morning of Tuesday, the 8th, when the French were slowly pushed back from the vicinity of Fere Champenoise. The road ran through the middle of ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... had not yet come to that. He knew that he might be deceived, and that circumstantial evidence was not always to be trusted. Even while his heart grew cold with the strongest and most deadly passion of which man is capable, with jealousy which is cruel as the grave, the nobility of his nature rose up and made him see that his duty was to ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... truth," said Jimmie Dale quietly. "It is quite true that Stace Morse committed the murder. Shows up the value of circumstantial evidence though, doesn't it? This would certainly have got him off, and convicted Clayton here before any jury in the land. But the point is, Carruthers, that Stace Morse ISN'T the Gray Seal—and that the Gray ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... temper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have excommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to such an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have hanged him, if it had been ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... pale-faced, anaemic-looking youth, declared, "rely upon two things, circumstantial evidence and motive. In the present case there is no circumstantial evidence, and as to motive, poor old Victor was too big a fool to have ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... however, a sufficient general resemblance is usually found to indicate that all the tribes have originally sprung from the same race, that they have gradually spread themselves over the whole continent from some one given point; which appears, as far as we can infer from circumstantial evidence, to have been somewhere upon the northern coast. There are some points of resemblance which, as far as is yet known, appear to be common to most of the different dialects with which we are acquainted. Such are, there being no generic terms as tree, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... is a scientific demonstration through personal experience. With me, the "firm conviction" is a matter of "circumstantial evidence," supported by analogy, and fortified by empirical testimony, such as acquaint the world with the facts and findings of science, and which I think admit of no ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... left it behind as a witness against an innocent man. He took the money from the safe, drew himself up by the rope, closed the trap door, locked up the rope and threw the stone into the pond. In France he would be safe to spend the proceeds of his crime. A nice bit of circumstantial evidence, is it not?" ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... my conclusions from good circumstantial evidence. After I was taken from you, I passed through a fearful siege of suffering, which would only harrow up your soul to hear. I often shudder at the remembrance. The last man in whose clutches I found myself was mean, brutal, ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... have a try, anyhow. How long before this plate will be dry enough to carry down to the Carrolls as circumstantial evidence?" ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hardly have wished to be disturbed in this occupation by affairs in which he took no sort of interest. The question is then only how far men like Pericles and himself may have ventured in their criticism. Though all direct tradition is wanting, we have at any rate circumstantial evidence possessing ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... been a false alarm. It only occasioned much excitement and activity. But its interest lay in the alertness of the destroyers to danger. The officers on board the flotilla had no doubt at all that the danger was real. Admiral Gleaves, indeed, saw circumstantial evidence of the menace in alluding to a bulletin of the French General Staff which referred to the activities of a German submarine off the Azores. This U-boat, the bulletin said, was ordered to watch in the vicinity of those islands, "at such a distance as it was supposed the enemy American convoy ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... clear to the judge and the jury. Just think how your powers would be increased if by your skill in psychological observation you could convince the jury that your client, who was about to be convicted on circumstantial evidence alone, was really innocent of the crime of which he was charged. Why, sir, the road which psychology opens up to the lawyer is well-nigh boundless. Don't you use the Bertillon system to measure the body? Don't you rely on thumb prints to identify the hand? How do you know ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... witness, indicator, hostile witness; eyewitness, earwitness, material witness, state's evidence; deponent; sponsor; cojuror^. oral evidence, documentary evidence, hearsay evidence, external evidence, extrinsic evidence, internal evidence, intrinsic evidence, circumstantial evidence, cumulative evidence, ex parte evidence [Lat.], presumptive evidence, collateral evidence, constructive evidence; proof &c (demonstration) 478; evidence in chief. secondary evidence; confirmation, corroboration, support; ratification &c (assent) 488; authentication; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of light iron bars, and here he detected stains of blood. A fragment of tough string tied to the rest was also stained. It had been cut—no doubt when Redmayne cast his burden loose on reaching the cliffs. Nothing offered any difficulty in the chain of circumstantial evidence, nor did another morning furnish further problems save the supreme and sustained mystery of ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... be discovered by any other means than their own assertions, contradicted, rather than confirmed their Egyptian descent. But it is not merely that their Egyptian descent is entirely destitute of proof, the most circumstantial evidence can ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... the truth was annoying. He had always been quite frank and open, explaining all his theories, and showing to me any weak points in the circumstantial evidence. Yet suddenly, as it seemed to me, he had become filled with a strange mistrust. Why, ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... to-day will find that the circumstantial evidence runs very strongly against Jefferson. He brought Freneau over from New York to Philadelphia, he knew the sort of work that Freneau would and could do, he gave him an office in the State Department, he probably discussed the topics which the "National Gazette" was to take ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... manner; and I may live to swear to it again, notwithstanding the doubts which have been raised in my mind by certain strange discoveries which link him to this unhappy affair by what we are pleased to call circumstantial evidence. For, as I am obliged to acknowledge, the one great thing we rely upon, in accusations of this kind, is so far lacking in his ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... grace of her slender, rounded form as she stood there before him, one slim hand half shyly extended to meet the cordial clasp of his own! He wanted to judge and be just; but that image dismayed him. How could he look on this picture and then—on that,—the one portrayed in the chain of circumstantial evidence which the colonel had laid before him? It was monstrous! it was treason to womanhood! One look in her eyes, superb in their innocence, was too much for his determined impartiality. Armitage gave himself a mental kick for what he termed ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... 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 ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... prompt measures. In these cases there is always room for doubt; and a man would rather doubt his own perceptions than believe the hellish truth. It is by this natural hesitation so many lives are lost. While the doctor deliberates, the patient dies. And then, if the secret of the death transpires—by circumstantial evidence, perhaps, which never came to the doctor's knowledge,—there is a public outcry. The doctor's practice is ruined, and his heart broken. The outcry would have been still louder if he had told the truth in time to save the patient, and had ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... in the cellar; this they asserted was the reason he would not consent to having the upper rooms of the house rented, and so they remained untenanted season after season. Thus, according to the general verdict (and assuredly the circumstantial evidence was strong), he was a miser of the most pronounced type,—"as stingy as could be," everybody agreed; and is not what everybody says usually ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... Holbein with an a), leather-dresser—I myself cannot feel so sure as others do. There is no documentary evidence to prove that the Michael Holbein of Augsburg ever had a son, and there is both documentary and circumstantial evidence to prove that the descendants of Hans Holbein the Elder claimed a different origin. That a man was a "citizen," or burgher, of any town, of course proves nothing. It was a period when painters especially learned their trades and practised it in many centres. And this, when guilds ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... 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 ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... was guilt in the heart of one boy at least, but which one there was no evidence at present to show. That the fact of the snuff-box being found in Howard's bed had at first sight looked like circumstantial evidence against him could not be denied, but as the links in the chain had been broken in several places, he considered that the whole had fallen to pieces, and he confessed that he did not believe for a moment, from the facts ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... unprofitable, willing to concede O'Hagan's theory a reasonable one, the more readily since he himself could by no means have sworn that the woman had actually come out through the door. Such had merely been his impression, honest enough, but founded on circumstantial evidence. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... disgraced, yet remaining still as intimate with them as ever! How horrid they all were—everybody except, perhaps—perhaps her father! In the past he was the only one who had ever shown himself superior to public opinion and circumstantial evidence. Would he be the same this time? If he, too, were going to be shocked and surprised, Margery felt that there was nothing left for her but to go off somewhere alone ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... us than in the very thick of our wrestle with the extortionate prices of fresh kuruma. It was inconsiderate of them, to say the least; for the attack naturally threw us into a certain disrepute not calculated to cheapen fares. Then, too, our obvious haste helped furnish circumstantial evidence ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... of fact, it was delicacy that kept Nelly silent. Seeing Freddie here at the theatre, she had, as is not uncommon with fallible mortals, put two and two together and made the answer four when it was not four at all. She had been deceived by circumstantial evidence. Jill, whom she had left in England wealthy and secure, she had met again in New York penniless as the result of some Stock Exchange cataclysm in which, she remembered with the vagueness with which one recalls once-heard ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... circumstantial evidence which is supposed to be conclusive, but on which we feel confident that no English jury would convict.'—NEW ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... and let the Times alone," advised Tim. "Why, I wouldn't be seen with a copy of it in my possession! It would be circumstantial evidence, or corroborative evidence or something horrid, and I'd get pinched for sure. You keep away from the ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... pass that way with a rifle in his hand about the same time that Shep was riding out from town. They had heard a shot, but had thought little of it. Munro had been hoeing cotton in the field and had seen the lad as he passed. Later he had heard excited voices, and presently a shot. Other circumstantial evidence wound a net around the boy. He was arrested. Before the coroner held an inquest a new development startled the community. Dick Bellamy fled on a night train, leaving a note to the coroner exonerating ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... threshing machine and broke it to pieces. At Guilden Morden, in the same neighbourhood, a burning took place of Mr. Butterfield's stacks to the amount of L1,500 damage. Mr. Butterfield was Overseer, and the Magistrates have committed, on strong circumstantial evidence, a man to whom he had denied relief, because he had refused to work for it. I have found that the apprehension of this dreadful and easily perpetrated mischief has greatly affected the minds of the rural parish officers, making the power ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Never agreed with anybody present, including himself. Always inventing circumstantial evidence to convict himself of crimes he had never committed. Remember the window? Half-brick came flying through it. Old Borkins looked out. Below stood Flap Sharper with the other half-brick in his hand. ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... 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 ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... contained two ironclad rams supposed to outclass any vessels of the United States navy. Though every effort had been made to keep secret the ultimate destination of these rams, the vigilance of the United States minister, reinforced by the zeal of the "Northern party," detected strong circumstantial evidence pointing toward a Confederate contract with the Lairds. A popular agitation ensued along with demands upon the Government to investigate. To mask the purposes of the Lairds, Captain James Bullock, the able special agent of the Confederate navy, was forced to fall lack upon the same tactics that ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... 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
... 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 "to his master" was not the only Negro slave in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... that history informs us of no long-lived republic which had not a senate. Sparta, Rome, and Carthage are, in fact, the only states to whom that character can be applied. In each of the two first there was a senate for life. The constitution of the senate in the last is less known. Circumstantial evidence makes it probable that it was not different in this particular from the two others. It is at least certain, that it had some quality or other which rendered it an anchor against popular fluctuations; and that a smaller council, drawn out of the senate, was appointed ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... is a capital story for boys. TROWBRIDGE never tells a story poorly. 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, ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... speak, but father waved him back to his seat, turned to the judge and jury and began the most wonderful speech on the subject of circumstantial evidence and ethical law that I have ever heard. His beautiful deep voice was as clear as a bell and twenty years seemed to have fallen from his shoulders. I was looking at and listening to the man he had been before I was born. And when I could ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was long 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 ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... mistaken; then, again, I may not," said Louie, reflectively, as she found herself alone, "but appearances point to the latter view. However, auntie says that 'circumstantial evidence is not positive proof,' so I will wait for further developments. If it is so—all right; if it is not so, well—then I think they should not be quite so familiar when Dexie shows him out. He is quite a handsome young gentleman and will make a distinguished-looking brother-in-law, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... Monsieur Courtlandt, unless you wish to appear against him for his forcible entrance to your apartment." Nora shook her head. The chief of police stroked his mustache to hide the fleeting smile. A peculiar case, the like of which had never before come under his scrutiny! "Circumstantial evidence, we know, points to him; but we have also an alibi which is incontestable. We must look elsewhere for your abductors. Think; have you not some enemy? Is there no one who might wish you worry and inconvenience? Are your associates all loyal to you? ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... 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 ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Betty, "I'm not. I've studied logic and argument and I ought to know better than to depend on circumstantial evidence. I'm ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... made by any one but its owner. That kind of subtlety is all right in print, but in real life it would put you on a false track in nineteen out of twenty cases. In ninety cases out of a hundred the obvious solution is the right one. In an investigation there may be coincidences of circumstantial evidence pointing in the wrong direction. But when you get first one coincidence, then a second, a third, and a fourth, you can be fairly sure you're on the right track. You don't add proof together. You multiply it. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... has passed away for ever: the object of this inquiry is to show him as he lived and loved and suffered, and the proofs of this and of that trait shall be so heaped up as to stifle doubt and reach absolute conviction. For not only is the circumstantial evidence overwhelming and conclusive, but we have also the testimony of eye-witnesses with which to confirm it, and one of these witnesses, Ben Jonson, is of rare credibility and ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... and it was the intention of d'Estrades to accept this invitation as soon as he had received from Paris the copy of a draft-treaty, which was being prepared. This draft-treaty, which was probably drawn up by Mazarin, reached d'Estrades in the course of October, but circumstantial evidence proves that it was never seen by William. Its provisions were as follows. Both Powers were to declare war on Spain and attack Flanders and Antwerp. The Dutch were to besiege Antwerp, which city, if taken, was to become the personal appanage of the Prince, of ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... endeavoring to explain away the facts that pointed to him as the murderer. I am a friend of Arthur's, I was with him at Harrow and at Oxford, and I refused to believe for an instant that he was capable of such a crime; but as a lawyer I could not help but see that the circumstantial evidence ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... dollars to the money she would control. A number of little points that Stratton had given no heed to had been magnified, and appeared then to have a great bearing on the case. For the first time, Stratton admitted to himself that the prosecution had made out a very strong case of circumstantial evidence. The defence, too, had been so deplorably weak that it added really to the strength of the prosecution. A great speech had been expected of Benham, but he did not rise to the occasion, and, as one who knew him said, Benham evidently ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... exquisite pain at the thought of what he must endure from a scandal spread among his friends. An accusation without foundation would have been almost more than he could bear, but one supported by such circumstantial evidence as lay behind the story Irons would tell if he set himself to make trouble,—the bare idea ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... 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 lower depths ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... newspaper which had caught Charlotte's eye. There set forth was the story of her ascent of the Rathhaus spire, there also the local custom with its meaning carefully explained, there pointed inquiry as to its particular application if certain rumors were true; and then followed the circumstantial evidence. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... slight, but, as Marjorie argued, "Straws show how the wind blows", and anyone capable of sympathizing with Germans might also be capable of assisting them. She felt somewhat in the position of Hamlet, doubting whether she had really surprised a dark secret or not, and anxious for more circumstantial evidence before she told others of her suspicions. She strictly charged Dona not to mention meeting Miss Norton in the little hamlet of Sandside, which Dona readily promised. She was not imaginative, and was at present far more interested in rows of cauliflowers or specimens of ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... belonged. While up to the very moment of reaching Sir Charles's house he had doubted the reality of the menace which hung over this man, the note of danger which he had sensed at the very threshold had convinced him, where more ordinary circumstantial evidence might have ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... the Kaiser made the remark to an Englishman with reference to the Spanish American War: "If I had had a larger fleet I would have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of his neck." Though the reason for Germany's attitude has never been proven by documents, circumstantial evidence points convincingly to the explanation. The quest for a colonial empire, upon which Bismarck had embarked rather reluctantly and late, had been taken up with feverish zeal by William II, his successor in the direction ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... 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 struck ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... only by the admiration and sympathy which all men must feel for a beautiful woman caught in such a deadly snare of circumstantial evidence, but by the conviction that Durbin, whose present sleek complacency was more offensive to me than the sneering superiority of a week ago, believed her to be a guilty woman, and as such his rightful prey. This alone would have influenced me to take the opposite view; for we never ran ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... from the private desks in the classrooms, from the dormitories, and from several of the studies. There was no clue to the offender, and first of all suspicion fell strongly on the new boy, little Elgood. A few trifling items of circumstantial evidence seemed to point him out, and it began to be gradually whispered, no one exactly knew how or by whom, that he must be the guilty boy. Hints were thrown out to him to this effect; little bits of paper, on which were written the words "Thou shalt not steal," or "The devil ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... Harald Ungi's sister Ragnhild; her inheritance of Moddan and Erlend lands; her right to half share of Harald Ungi's half share of Caithness earldom; her title to Strathnaver lands not derived through earl John; circumstantial evidence against her being a dau. of earl John, never claimed any share of earldom of Orkney; Skene's opinion that she was a dau. of earl John based on name Johanna; theory as to her being a dau. of Snaekoll, and, as such, heiress of large estates, made a ward by the king, whose queen was Johanna; ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... that conclusive circumstantial evidence that they are," said Detective Gubb, and he clanked ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... be proved through the telephone people, though there was certain circumstantial evidence against one or two Mexican women, as I heard through Eagle March. But American families who employed Mexicans were privately informed of the existence of a possible plot against them, and consequently a number of Mexican servants in El Paso were thrown out of employment ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and Ed and Douglas, though equally positive that she was mistaken, let her hold the hope—or rather belief—that Bob still lived. She asserted that he was alive as one states a fact that one knows is beyond question. The circumstantial evidence against her theory was strong, but a woman's intuition stands not for reason, and her conclusions she will ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... weeks, and 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
... hands?" He displayed his laudably clean, pink fingers. "Of course, if I go up there I shall get my hands all dirty—and equally of course if I had been up there, they would be all dirty now. Surely you believe in the value of circumstantial evidence; therefore, before we fix the responsibility, let us search for the ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... 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
... several minor ones: (1) Who was Boethius? (2) Could he have known these numerals? (3) Is there any positive or strong circumstantial evidence that he did know them? (4) What are the probabilities in ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... no real chance for a hearing. His friends of the morning had lost all sense of loyalty. They were almost as crazed as those whom his recent success had irritated. The story of his row with Culver had spread throughout the confines of the camp. No link in the chain of circumstantial evidence seemed wanting to convict him. A bawling sea of human beings surrounded him ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... 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 conspicuous instance is 'hearsay evidence.' Book vii. deals with the 'authentication' ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... witness, but it could be proved by circumstantial evidence. K-19, the man whose work you took up, had instructions to shadow young Hoff to his home. At two in the morning he relieved another operative. At three you ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... 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 ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... formation; the conclusion, therefore, that they originated from hot solutions, either aqueous or gaseous, or both, which were essentially "after-effects" of igneous activity and came from the same primary source as the associated igneous rocks, is an inference based on circumstantial evidence of the ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... we have already introduced to the reader, showed strong nautical propensities; he swam nut-shells in a puddle, and sent pieces of lath with paper sails floating down the brook which gurgled by the parsonage. This was circumstantial evidence: he was convicted, and ordered off to sea, to return a Nelson. For his conduct during the time he served her, Edward Forster certainly deserved well of his country; and had he been enabled to continue in ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... that it was I who had been rung up by the burglar, and the fact of my not having said a word about it would be directly damning to me, if in the end it did not incriminate us both. It made me quite faint to feel that we might escape the Scylla of our present peril and yet split on the Charybdis of circumstantial evidence. Yet I could see no middle course of conceivable safety, if I held my tongue another moment. So I spoke up desperately, with the rash resolution which was the novel feature of my whole conduct on this occasion. But any sheep would be resolute and ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... was speechless—his tongue refused its office, for then the dreadful conviction forced itself upon him, that he was regarded as the murderer of that young woman. And how could he prove his innocence? The weight of circumstantial evidence against him was tremendous and might produce his conviction and condemnation ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... should not have recognised you. Circumstantial evidence seems to establish the fact that you have ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... "bilious." This was the proper thing to do. Miss Leroy's sitting- room was decidedly disorderly; the chairs were dusty; "yer might write yer name on the table," Mrs. Mobbs declared; but, nevertheless, the casement was never closed night nor day; and, moreover, Miss Leroy was believed by the strongest circumstantial evidence to wash herself all over every morning, a habit which Mrs. Mobbs thought "weakening," and somehow connected with ethical impropriety. When Miss Leroy was married, and first as an elderly woman became known to me, she was very inconsequential in her opinions, or at least appeared so to our ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... to watch over Averil, who continued very feeble and 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 ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... did not know he was listening, he heard her low, sweet laugh; and it had a joyous ring and melody which repeated itself like a haunting refrain of music. He would say smilingly, "It is circumstantial evidence, equivalent to direct proof." ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... just as well as she can write nonsense verse. The story is told in the first person by a modest young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to ferret out the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man. Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to a woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead man's niece with whom the detective promptly falls in love, though she is already engaged to her uncle's secretary, an alliance which the dead man insisted ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... disliked to see a senior 'ragging' with a junior. He had a great idea of the dignity of the senior school, and did all that in him lay to see that it was kept up. The greater number of the juniors with whom the senior was found ragging, the more heinous the offence. Circumstantial evidence was dead against Charteris. To all outward appearances he was one of the players in the impromptu football match. The soft and fascinating beams of the simper, to quote Mr Jabberjee once more, had not yet faded from the act. A well-chosen word ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... persons accused of werwolfery, tried in France, and elsewhere, in the middle of the sixteenth century, when belief in this species of lycanthropy was at its zenith, there was an extraordinary readiness among the accused to confess, and even to give circumstantial evidence of their own metamorphosis; and that this particular form of self-accusation at length became so popular among the leading people in the land, that the judicial court, having its suspicions awakened, and, doubtless, fearful ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... not have been so far wrong after all," he observed to my mother, "in spite of the array of circumstantial evidence ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... heard make the admission. 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
... Hugh!" she cried, her black eyes sparkling with genuine admiration. "I love a boy who has faith in his fellows, and thinks the best of them, no matter how circumstantial evidence may seem to blacken their characters. And my son, if only you can find an explanation of this puzzle that will exonerate your young companion, I shall be very happy indeed. A great load will have been removed from my poor old heart. I would rather lose the entire twelve spoons ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson |
