Paul vs. The State.

were left at home together when the last of the family went to church on Sunday morning; that the deceased had told her father that prisoner had ridden his ox through his cotton and knocked it out; the father had warned him before he left for church on Sunday morning that he must not do that again. On Monday morning he denied the killing to two different persons without being charged with it, and he was not with the searchers after the missing child.

B. F. Jones, one of the witnesses on the trial testified as follows: "I with others had been to the place where the child was killed. Everett Rhodes who had also been with us, was on his way to pick cotton; I told him that I knew Wilson was around there, and would go to him when we parted company; sometime after that Everett came to my house and said that Wilson was hid behind a little cotton patch near my house and behind a log. I went in that direction and as I jumped the fence, I looked down the lane and saw him; as soon as he saw me in about sixty yards he started to run, when Everett grabbed him and held him until I captured him; it was between 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning. The first words he spoke were: "Mr. Jones, I never killed that girl." I replied, "I never said you did." He said, "Mr. Jones turn me loose." I said "I can't, we will go and see what Mr. Kitchens says about it." He then said "now Mr. Jones I will tell you the truth, I did kill her." I asked him how? He said "I killed her with a fence-rail." I asked him why he did it, and he said, "because she told a lie on me the day before-Saturday, big Bud (meaning deceased's father) and sister went to meeting, and left me there to water the steer, and when they came back she told her father that I rode the steer through the field. And on Sunday she followed me down to the spring, and I got some switches and whipped her for it. She ran up the hill to a haw-tree and cursed me. I went up there and got a switch and whipped her again, and when I started off she cursed me

Paul vs. The State.

again and I went to the fence, got a rail, went back and knocked her in the head three times and she died."

This same witness, in answer to the question, "Did yon see anything near the body that corroborated what he had told you? "I saw peach-tree switches lying close to the dead girl, and also a fence rail, with a piece broken off the end, which he told us were there." Other witnesses testified to the same facts, and also to there being the stubends of switches at the spring.

The same statement, which he made to the witness Jones, he made also at the inquest to all present, and repeated it to Mr. Bell, the jailor, several times; and in connection therewith, said that he whipped her for telling lies on him, and killed her because she cursed him. These confessions were not wanting in naturalness, consistency, nor corroboration; besides, they were freely and voluntarily made. The testimony shows motive, shows the switches frazzled and worn, shows the rail with blood upon it, the skull fractured by the blows dealt as described, and the dead body with the merciless stripes inflicted. The confession of the prisoner, so thoroughly supported by the corroborating circumstances, in our judgment fully justified the jury in finding that he slew the deceased. Not only so, but takes the case out of that referred to in 43 Ga., 256, where there was nothing but the bare confession, and no evidence whatever of the corpus delicti.

2. The second question in this case is as to the prisoner's legal responsibility for the commission of the act.

His exact age was not shown by any of the witnesses, but Daniel Jackson testified that he had the mother for his wife eleven years before, and that the prisoner was then running about, and was known as the Strickland boy. Riley Chamblin said that he knew the prisoner's mother thirteen or fourteen years before that time, and she had two children, one of whom was known as the Strickland boy. Adeline Hill testified that he was the oldest of his mother's two boys, and was always called the Strickland v 65-11

Paul vs. The State.

boy. So that he was certainly thirteen, and possibly fourteen years of age, but under the law the prisoner is always entiled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt, and it is never to be denied him. Admitting that he is under the age of fourteen years, he is only to be made amenable to the law where he knows the distinction between good and evil. Upon this point how stands the proof?

Daniel Hill testifies that he had as good a mind as most any boy, and that he compared in intellect very well with other boys between thirteen and fourteen years of age. Daniel Jackson: that he had a good mind, knew right from wrong, was hard-headed, and wanted his own way. Mary Moore swears that he has sense in some things, and in some he don't; he has a bad mind, he's not a good boy, he is mischievous, a bad boy to fight; I don't mean that he knows no better; of course he knows better.

Charles Barton testifies that he has known him fourteen or fifteen months; he has a good mind in regard to knowing good from evil. G. F. Bell says that he has known him since the 9th or 10th of September last (before the trial), has seen him two or three times a day, conversed with him often, and thinks his intelligence very good. B. F. Jones says that prisoner is a sensible boy; he knows what is right and what is wrong, and thinks that he does know good from evil. B. Kitchens has known the prisoner for three years, and he has as much sense as any other boy of his color. It is further shown by other witnesses that he is vicious, has a bad disposition, has fusses with little children, has had to be punished therefor, all of which indicate the temper and character of the prisoner.

Not a single witness was brought to testify in rebuttal. The jury had the prisoner and the evidence before them, and upon their oaths they said that he did the killing; that he knew good from evil, and that he was guilty of murder; the judge, upon reviewing the whole case, upon a motion for a new trial, refused to grant it, and therefore the verdict must stand.

Gurley vs. The State.

It has been repeatedly ruled by this court that it is the especial province of jurors to pass upon all questions of fact, and that they are better judges thereof than this court can possibly be, and unless there be some legal reason to take cases out of that general rule, they will not be disturbed.

Judgment affirmed.

GURLEY VS. THE STATE OF GEORGIA.

An ordinary has no power to grant a license to retail liquor for a less period than one year, and a license for four months will not protect the retailer from prosecution.

Criminal law. License. Before Judge LESTER. Lumpkin Superior Court. September Term, 1879.

Reported in the decision.

WIER BOYD; M. G. BOYD, by brief, for plaintiff in

error.

THOS. F. GREER, solicitor-general, for the state.

WARNER, Chief Justice.

The defendant was indicted for the offense of misdemeanor, and charged with retailing spirituous liquors without license. On the trial of the case the jury, under the charge of the court, found the defendant guilty. A motion was made for a new trial on the grounds therein stated, which was overruled, and the defendant excepted.

It appears from the evidence in the record, that the defendant had obtained a license from the ordinary of Lumpkin county on the 10th of January, 1879, to retail spirituous liquors for four months from that date, for which he paid $8.33, and the only question insisted on here, was

Gurley vs. The State.

whether that license would protect him against the charge contained in the indictment. The 530th section of the Code declares that all licenses to retail spirituous liquors are for the term of one year, and the fee prescribed there. for is $25.00. The 1419th section declares that persons. before obtaining license to retail spirituous liquors, must apply to the ordinary of the county in which they desire. to retail, who have power, to grant or refuse such application, and also provides for giving bond, taking an oath, etc., and also declares that licenses granted in any other way are void. Construing these two sections of the Code together, as relating to the same subject matter, the ordinary had no authority to issue a license to retail spirituous liquors for any other term of time than that prescribed by law, to-wit., one year; and that being so, the four months' license, under which the defendant claimed protection, was issued without authority of law, and was void. The policy of the statute, in requiring licenses to retail spirituous liquors to be granted for one year, may have been to prevent itinerant liquor dealers. from disturbing religious and other meetings, by procuring a license for a short time, so as to enable them to pursue their traffic during such meetings, and then leave that locality. But whatever may have been the object of the statute, we are content to maintain and enforce it as we find it. But it may be said that the defendant did not intend to violate the law, and did not know that he was doing so. The reply is that the seventh section of the Codedeclares that "Laws after promulgation are obligatory upon all inhabitants of this state, and ignorance of the law excuses no one."

Let the judgment of the court below be affirmed.