The Sun. — 1862-09-11 (London, England)

JUDICIAL EVIDENCE IN 1629.—M05t of the trials  reported in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. belong to the general and well-known history of the country, and the same is true of most of those which occur in the time of Charles I. . . . One singular exception occurs in the 4th of Charles I. (A D. 1629), which deserves notice both on account of its curiosity, and also because it is nearly the first instance in which there is anything like a report of circumstantial evidence. This is the case of the murder of Jane Norkott, for which her mother, her brother-in-law, and her sister were tried and acquitted at Hertford assizes, and were afterwards tried on an appeal ire the King's,Bench at Westminster. The evidence against the prisoners was, that they were in the house alone with the deceased all night, and that no one came in ; and that the state of the body (the neck was broken and the throat cut) and other circumstances, showed, that she could not have killed herself. Hence it was argued they must have killed her. In the present day such evidence would be held to establish no more than an alternative case, that is, to prove, as in the famous instance of the Road murder, some one of several persons was guilty. What the result of the trial then Was does not appear. The most singular point about it was the evidence given by two clergymen—brothers, and ministers of the parish in which the murder happened and of the one next adjoining it. Sergeant Maynard says that he heard their evidence, took it down at the time, and would be ready to swear to the accuracy of his report. The first clergyman "was a very reverend person, as I guessed, of about seventy years of age ; his testimony was delivered gravely and temperately, but to the great admiration' (1. e. wonder) "of the auditory. He said : The body) being taken up out of the grave thirty days after the party's death, and lying on the grass, and the four defendants being present, were required each of them to touch the dead body. Okeman's wife' (the sister) fell upcn her knees and prayed God to show tokens of her innocency. The appellant' (the woman's child) 'did touch the dead body, whereupon the brow of the dead, which before was of a livid and carrion colour, began to have a dew, or gentle sweat, arise on it, which increased by degrees ti.l the sweat ran down in drops on the face. The brow turned to a lively and fresh colour, and the deceased opened one of her eyes and shut it again; and this opening the eye was done three several times. She likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger three times, and pulled it in again ; and the finger dropped blood from it on the grass'' " The witness added, that "he himself dipped his finger in the blood which came from the dead body to examine it, and he swore he believed it was blood." The other clergyman confirmed this account in every particular. One of the odd parts of the sbry is that, assuming the truth of the evidence, it is impossible to make out whether it proves that a miracle was worked in answer to Mrs. Olfeman's prayer ; or that the bleeding of the body showed (according to the s common superstition) the presence of the murderer, and, if o which o grotesquef threein the it pointed at. There is something the production of an ambiguous miracle for the purpose,of clearing up ambiguous evidence. —"Cornhi‘i Magazine for ,September, •