Knight

Defendant was charged with having committed lewd and lascivious acts upon the body of a female child under the age of fourteen years with the intent of arousing and gratifying the lust and passions and sexual desires of himself and such child, as denounced by section 288 of the Penal Code. He was tried and found guilty.

He had been previously convicted of the same offense but a new trial was granted by the lower court upon the ground that it had permitted the prosecution to introduce evidence of similar offenses committed against other little girls for the purpose of showing the disposition of the defendant to commit crimes of the character with which he is charged. The points here relied upon for a reversal of the judgment of conviction present practically the same question, though the evidence was received in this trial upon a different theory.

Briefly stated, the facts are as follows: Defendant at the time of the offense charged was about fifty-seven years of age. He is the father of three adult children. He was divorced from his wife and lived alone in a small cottage in the Mission district. According to his own testimony he was very fond of little children, and his chief…