[Footnote 1: There are now five sets; three of which are the size of life, and two, four and twenty inches high. One set is, or is to be deposited at the temple called the tomb of Burns, in Ayrshire.--Another belongs to Lord Cassili. The third is in this country.]
[Footnote 2: Since the above has been published, Thom has nearly finished his Old Mortality in a block too small for his conception, and which will oblige him to execute an entirely new figure.]
[We extract the following affecting story from the "_Western Monthly Magazine_." Though written in the form of romantic narrative, it presents one of the strongest cases we recollect to have seen, in which innocence is overborne by powerful but false appearances of guilt. It is certainly a strong illustration of the danger of convicting a fellow creature, upon what is technically called _presumptive evidence_, a topic upon which the gentlemen of the bar are furnished with as wide a field for the display of professional ingenuity, as upon any other in the whole compass of jurisprudence. That it is often safe, and indispensably necessary however to rely upon such kind of evidence, is so obvious in itself--and so well established as a legal maxim--that the danger of sometimes convicting, upon a train of specious but deceptive circumstances, is less than the evil of acquittal in the absence of positive, conclusive, and infallible testimony.]
The circumstances which I am about to relate, are familiar to many now living. In some particulars I have varied from the truth; but if in the relation of an event which excited intense interest, at the time of its occurrence, I shall succeed in impressing upon any one, the delusive character of circumstantial evidence, my object will be attained.
Beneath the magnificent sycamores which bordered a lovely stream in the southwest part of Kentucky, a company of emigrants had pitched their encampment, for the night. The tents were set up, the night-fire threw its gleam upon the water, the weary horses were feeding, the evening repast was over, and preparations were made for repose. The party consisted of three brothers, with their families, who were wending their way to the new lands of the distant Missouri. On their visages, where the ague had left the sallow traces of its touch, few of the nobler traits of the human character were visible. Accustomed to reside upon the outskirts of society, little versed in its forms, and as little accustomed to the restraints of law, or the duties of morality, they were the fit pioneers of civilization, because their frames were prepared for the utmost endurance of fatigue, and society was purified by their removal. Theirs were not the fearless independence, and frank demeanor which marks the honest backwoodsman of our country; but the untamed license, and the wiley deportment of violent men, who loved not the salutary influence of the law, nor mingled of choice with the virtuous of their own species.