6 Watts 164 | Pa. | 1837
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
There are presumptions of mere fact, which are of growing importance in the application of evidence, and which temper the severity of its rules as abstractions, by adapting them more intimately to convenience and justice in practice. Standing towards the circumstances from which they spring, in the relation of cause and effect, they are founded, not in artificial connections, but in the current of human affairs; nor have they a technical force beyond their natural power of creating belief. They are conclusions from experience, that the same consequences usually proceed from the same causes, which dispense with proof of circumstances that usually attend particular actions. Such is the presumption of guilt from the possession of goods recently stolen; of illegitimacy from recency of birth after the husband’s first access; and of many other facts inferred from the conduct of the parties, of which other examples are given in 2 Stark. Ev. (Gerhard’s ed.) 684. Though it is usually the business of the jury to deal with these presumptions of mere fact,-they furnish a ground of adjudication by the court, when they are preliminary to evidence in chief. What, then, is the presumptive fate of a prize-ticket after it has been presented and paid, and when the lottery has been suppressed ? Undoubtedly destruction. Being of no greater value to any one connected with the office, than a bit of waste paper,
Judgment reversed, and a venire de novo awarded.