Conley v. House

The district court made an express finding relating to the controlling fact in this case. Most of the testimony offered' in favor of the plaintiffs in error is of a shadowy and unsubstantial kind. Some doubt is thrown upon the one piece of positive testimony by a showing that the witness giving it did not have the means of knowledge which he claimed. Some of the witnesses can neither read nor write, have only a suppositious knowledge of their own parentage, and seem free to impeach the character of their own mother after her death in favor of that side of the case which would benefit them…