cumstance not unlikely to happen in the course of
shifting or stirring the body, it was held sufficient evidence of the
guilt of the party.

The same singular kind of evidence, although reprobated by Mathaeus and
Carpzovius, was admitted in the Scottish criminal courts, at the short
distance of one century. My readers may be amused by the following
instances:

"The laird of Auchindrane (Muir of Auchindrane, in Ayrshire) was accused
of a horrid and private murder, where there were no witnesses, and which
the Lord had witnessed from heaven, singularly by his own hand, and
proved the deed against him. The corpse of the man being buried in
Girvan church-yard, as a man cast away at sea, and cast out there, the
laird of Colzean, whose servant he had been, dreaming of him in his
sleep, and that he had a particular mark upon his body, came and took up
the body, and found it to be the same person; and caused all that lived
near by come and touch the corpse, as is usual in such cases. All round
the place came but Auchindrane and his son, whom nobody suspected, till
a young child of his, Mary Muir, seeing the people examined, came in
among them; and, when she came near the dead body, it sprang out
in bleeding; upon which they were apprehended, and put to the
torture."--WODROW'S _History_, Vol. I. p. 513. The trial of Auchindrane
happened in 1611. He was convicted and executed.--HUME'S _Criminal Law_,
Vol. I. p. 428.

A yet more dreadful case was that of Philip Standfield, tried upon the
30th November, 1687, for cursing his father (which, by the Scottish law,
is a capital crime, _Act 1661, Chap_. 20), and for being accessory
to his murder. Sir James Standfield, the deceased, was a person of
melancholy temperament; so that, when his body was found in a pond near
his own house of Newmilns, he was at first generally supposed to have
drowned himself. But, the body having been hastily buried, a report
arose that he had been strangled by ruffians, instigated by his son
Philip, a profligate youth, whom be had disinherited on account of his
gross debauchery. Upon this rumour, the Privy Council granted warrant to
two surgeons of character, named Crawford and Muirhead, to dig up the
body, and to report the state in which they should find it. Philip
was present on this occasion, and the evidence of both surgeons bears
distinctly, that he stood for some time at a distance from the body
of his parent; but, being called upon to assist in stre