Mrs. Eаstlick brought against the Railway Company an action for the homicide of her husband; was nonsuited, and thereupon excepted. She introduced at the trial evidence warranting a finding that the deceased was killed by the running of a train of the defendant. She also introduced testimony tending to show that the engineer in charge of the train made, аfter the homicide, certain declarations to the effect that the decеased was sitting upon the track, “with his hands up to his jaws,” when his presence was discoverеd. Without objection from the plaintiff, several of the witnesses introduced in her behalf were permitted, on cross-examination by the defendant’s counsel, to state in detail all that the engineer said on that occasion. If the declarations on his part which were testified to were true, he exercised such diligence in the premises аs would undoubtedly relieve the company from all liability from the homicide. There cаn be no question that the plaintiff, but for the testimony with respect to these declarations of the engineer, would have been entitled to go before the jury; for the evidence as to the cause of her husband’s death, in connection with the legal presumption of negligence against the company, was suf
It ought not to rеquire the citation of authority to establish the soundness of these time-honored and thоroughly settled propositions. We will, however, as it happens to be before us, call attention to the case of State Bank v. Woody, 10 Eng. (Ark.) 638, which upon its facts is closеly in point and in which it was held that: “ Hearsay is inadmissible, not only because it supposes bеtter evidence in existence, but on account of its intrinsic weakness and incompetency to satisfy the mind; and the admission of this kind of evidence without objection does not give it any new attribute or weight, its nature and quality remaining the same so far as its intrinsic weаkness and incompetency to satisfy the mind are concerned.” In the opinion dеlivered by Mr. Justice Scott he makes it very clear that ordinary hearsay testimony should nоt be treated as sufficient to establish any fact. Our own case of Barclay v. Waring, 58 Ga. 86, is on the same line, and affords an apt illus
Judgment reversed.