Dilwood

The defendant was convicted of grand larceny in stealing a calf, and now prosecutes this appeal.

The court gave the jury the following instruction upon the subject of circumstantial evidence: “As mathematical or absolute certainty is seldom to be obtained in human affairs, reason and public utility require that jurors, as well as all mankind, in forming their opinion of facts, should be regulated by the superior number of probabilities on the one side or the other, whether the amount of these probabilities be expressed in words, or arguments, or by figures and numbers.” We have looked in vain in our standard works upon criminal law for an indorsement of the principle contained in this instruction of the court. Starkie on Evidence, in discussing this question at page 860, says: “It is very possible, indeed, that mere coincidences may be so numerous as by force of multiplied probability to exclude all reasonable doubt; but this can never happen in the absence of circumstances of a conclusive tendency, unless the probability be increased to an indefinite extent beyond the reach of mere calculation. Whenever the probability is of a definite and limited nature (whether in the…