Brooke and Others v. Filer and Others. duties and obligations of the citizens of each, by the laws of nations (all of which was well known to the said lawyer and to the defendants) when in a state of war; and that, according to the well recognized principles of said laws, the authority given by the said complainants, Brooke & Tucker, to said lawyer to institute said suit was either suspended or revoked and annulled; that the said civil war continued to be waged between the said government of the United States and the said Confederate States during the whole progress and proceedings in the said suit in this court, and when, and until after the said decree was rendered; and that during all that time, the said Brooke & Tucker were both of them residents of the city of Richmond and State of Virginia, one of the said Confederate States, and the said Rose and the said lawyer were citizens and residents of the State of Indiana, one of the United States, as was well known to the said lawyer and said defendants; that in the then state of public affairs, the said complainants, if it had been possible for them, or either of them—which it was not-to have been personally present at the time said original complaint was filed by the said lawyer, would not have been permitted by law to institute said suit, and the said lawyer could have no authority, as their agent, to do for them in their absence what they would not have been permitted to do if present. The complainant therefore insists that as the said suit was instituted, continued, and ended without any authority from them or either of them to the said lawyer to appear as their attorney, they ought not to be held bound by the decree which has been rendered therein; and they pray that the same may be annulled and set aside. In consideration whereof, the complainants ask the court to review said judgment and decree against them as hereinbefore stated, and to reverse said judgment and decree, and adjudge the same to be null and void, and to restore the said complainants to their conditions, as regards said contract with said Rose, in which they stood before said decree was rendered. And will your Honor further order, adjudge, and decree that the Brooke and Others v. Filer and Others. said contracts with the said Rose of the 18th of September, 1847, and July, 1850, were procured by fraud, and that the same be set aside and your complainants remitted and restored to all their rights in respect to all the property embraced in said contracts in the same manner and to the same extent as if said contracts, had never been made; and will your Honor further order, adjudge, and decree that the deed made by the said Rose to the said Everhart for the lands designated therein and conveyed by the said Rose as the pretended agent of the complainant, was and is null and void, and that the same be delivered up to be canceled, and that all the right, claim, and title of the said Everhart, and all persons claiming under him, be vested in and conveyed to the complainant; and will your Honor grant such other and further relief to the complainant as the justice of the case demands.” We take judicial notice that before, at, and after, the rendition of the judgment sought to be reviewed, Virginia, one of the Confederate States, was at war with Indiana, one of the adhering or loyal states of the Union. We hold that it was error of law, the court having no legal power to do so, to render the judgment, and this entitles the party to a review of it. All the authorities, without a dissent, and they are numerous, concur in this. In Livingston v. Fordan, 10 Amer. Law Reg. (N. s.) 53, Chief Justice CHASE says: "The jurisdiction of the state court over the plaintiffs, whatever it was, terminated when the civil war broke out." United States v. Grossmayer, 9 Wall. 72; The Kanawha Coal Company v. The Kanawha and Ohio Coal Company, 7 Blatchf. 391, and cases there cited; Knafel v. Williams, 30 Ind. 1; Perkins v. Rogers, 35 Ind. 124. The authorities are uniform on this question. Under the facts shown in the complaint for review, the appellants were entitled to the relief sought. The appellees have not furnished us with a brief, but we do not wonder that they have not put themselves to that trouble. The judgment is reversed, at the costs of the appellees; Way v. The State. cause remanded, with instructions to the said circuit court to overrule the demurrer to the complaint for review, and for further proceedings, &c.* S. I. Anthony, F. Church, S. E. Perkins, and S. E. Perkins, Fr., for appellants. F. Bradley, L. A. Cole, T. A. Hendricks, O. B. Hord, and A. W. Hendricks, for appellees. *Petition for a rehearing overruled. 35 409 130 207 35 409 WAY V. THE State. CRIMINAL LAW.-Presumption.—The possession of articles recently stolen SAME.-Evidence.-Defendant was charged with stealing a shawl and vest on APPEAL from the Wayne Criminal Court. BUSKIRK, J.-The appellant was indicted for the larceny of a shawl and vest, the property of one John C. Reed, was tried by a jury, found guilty, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment in the state prison, where he now is. There was a motion for a new trial made and overruled, and proper exceptions taken. The evidence is in the record by bill of exceptions. There was a motion in arrest of judgment, which was overruled, and an exception was taken. The reversal of this case is mainly insisted upon for the alleged error of the court in excluding, over the objection 148 187 Way v. The State. of the appellant, competent and material evidence from the jury. It appears, from the bill of exceptions, that the shawl charged to have been stolen was found by the sheriff in the defendant's possession on the 12th day of July, 1870. It was also shown by the testimony of one Ferdinand Dye, that in the month of June or July of that year, "he saw the defendant buy of a stranger a gun and an army blanket or shawl; he thought it was an army blanket, but paid little attention to it. It was gray, and in appearance looked like the shawl before him" (which had been proven to be the one stolen). The appellant then offered to prove by the sheriff, then in court, that the gun then in the court house was the same found by him in the defendant's possession on the 12th day of July, 1870; but the prosecuting attorney objected, and the court sustained the objection, and the testimony was excluded. The appellant then offered to prove, by the said Ferdinand Dye-a competent witness then present-that said gun, found by the sheriff in the possession of the said defendant on the 12th day of July, 1870, was the identical same gun he saw said defendant buy of a stranger in June or July, but the State, by her prosecuting attorney, objected, and the objection was sustained, and the testimony was overruled. These rulings were clearly erroneous and prejudicial to the rights of the appellant. The appellant was charged in the indictment with the stealing of a shawl and vest. There was no positive evidence that he had stolen the articles. charged. The State demanded his conviction upon the proof that Reed had lost the articles, and that the same were recently afterwards found in the possession of the appellant. The possession of articles recently stolen-the possession being unaccounted for-raises a presumption that the person in whose possession the same are found is the thief. This presumption is not conclusive, but may be repelled and overcome by evidence showing, or tending to show, how the accused came into the possession of the Way v. The State. goods. The appellant offered to overcome this presumption by proof that he had come into the lawful possession of the goods by purchase from a stranger. He was permitted and did prove that he had, in June or July, 1870, purchased a gun and an army blanket, or shawl, from a stranger, but the witness was unable to fix the precise time when such purchase was made, or to identify with certainty the blanket produced on the trial as the one he saw him purchase. The larceny is charged in the indictment to have been committed on the first day of June, and, at all events, it must have been prior to the 12th of July, when the shawl was found in the possession of the defendant. If this testimony had been admitted by the court, it would have strongly tended to establish the fact, about which the witness Dye was not clear, that the purchase which he saw the defendant make was prior to the 12th day of July, and this testimony would certainly have had a legitimate and proper bearing upon the minds of the jury in determining whether it was a blanket or a shawl he saw the defendant purchase. It was not pretended, on the trial, that the gun which was found in the possession of the defendant, and was produced in court, was the property of Reed, and that it had been stolen. The issue in the case was as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant in stealing a shawl and vest, the property of said Reed, and the defendant had the undoubted right to repel the presumption of guilt which attached to him by reason. of the stolen property being found in his possession. But we have shown that this presumption is not conclusive. The presumption is overcome when the party, in whose possession the stolen property is found, proves that he purchased the property from another person; and it is weakened when the party charged proves facts naturally tending to show that he bought the property, and did not steal it. The evidence offered and excluded had a tendency to disprove the charge, by showing that the defendant, prior to the time when the property was found in his possession, purchased a gun, and probably the stolen shawl, of a |