Circumstantial Evidence

beoríes ot convictioa on circumstantial evidence are rife in the lawbooks and have afforded the plot of many a novel, "said J. S. Haberling of New York. ''Averysad case, not of couviction, but almost as bad in its resulte, oceurred in New York reoently. A young lady of refinement, a stranger in the city, obtained employment as governess in a gentleman 's fainily. Oue of her pupils, a girl 15 years oíd, lost a diamond ring. It was found in the desk of the governess. She declared she had not seen it since it was last on the girl's hand, but she was hustled off to the Tombs, and unable to give bond was kept there several days, exposed to the cornpanionship of the most depraved of her sex. She was taken to court in the Black Maria with a negress aud a white woman, both convicted felons, going to be sentenced. She was kept in the pen waitiugfor her case tobe called, exposed to the impudent gazo of the horde of courtroom loafers. "When her case was called. thonmirt: appointed a lawyer to defend her, as she was penniless. The prosecuting witness and her father told the story of the fiiiding of the missing ring. The presumption that the accused had placed it there was more or less strong tuitil the lawyer began to cross qnestion the owuer of the ring. Guessing at the truth, by adroit questioning he drew from tho unwilling witness the fact that she had often pried into the desk and dressiug case drawers of the governess, and that she had been so engaged an hour or so before she missed her ring, and the further fact that the ring fitted loosely. The judge dismissed the case promptly, and the accuser's father apologized, but the young woman, being of a highly strung and nervous temperament, was completely prostrated by her terrible experience in the Tombs, and the ill effects will, it is feared, be permanent. "