Shainwold

The prisoner was convicted of the crime of arson in the second degree, alleged in the indictment to have been committed by him the 4th day of May, 1875.

1. If the evidence concerning the attempt of the prisoner, made on the 18th day of the same month, to fire the house, was admissible at all, it certainly was not error to introduce it before making proof of the corpas delicti alleged in the indictment, for the mere order in which the proofs are to be heard, rests in the discretion of the court trying the cause.

2. Nor have we any doubt that it was competent for the prosecution to prove the attempt of the prisoner, previously made, to set fire to the building. The evidence in that respect bore directly upon the intent of the prisoner in subsequently setting fire to the house—the offense for which the indictment proceeded.

*470 It may be true, as claimed for the prisoner in argument, that upon proof of the fact of setting fire to the house on the 24th day of May, the law would have, thereupon, inferred a criminal intent, but this would only show that the introduction of distinct proof of the intent, while perhaps unnecessary, wrought no such injury to the prisoner at the trial,…