Eaton

The defendant was convicted of the crime of rape, and sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison for the term of forty-five years. Objections are made to certain rulings of the court in the exclusion of testimony and in an instruction to the jury, but none of them, we think, are tenable. We subjoin the several questions excluded, with the instruction objected to, adding such comments as may be necessary.

1. The following questions were asked of the prosecuting witness: “You had the night before agreed to meet Bert Chattel, and attend the Portuguese celebration with him? That is so, is it not? You knew when you left your home, *908 upon the night of the 2d of June, that you were going to meet Bert Chattel ? That is a fact, is it not ? ’ ’ These questions referred to a dance which the witness had attended in company with Chattel on the night of the crime, and from which she was returning when the crime was committed; and she had just testified that she had “agreed to go with Bert Chattel, but .... did not intend to keep [her] engagement”; and that “when [she] left the house upon the evening [in question she] did not expect to meet” him. Both questions had thus been already…