Govinda Menon, J.-The main, if not the sole, piece of evidence against the appellant is his confession made before the Stationary Sub-Magistrate and marked as Ex. P-3 in the case. If that confession is accepted, as true, then, there can be no doubt that the deceased Govindammal was done to death by the appellant by cutting her throat by a deadly weapon. But the question is whether it is safe to act upon that document alone and find the appellant guilty of the offence.

The appellant is a young man of 18 or 19 years of age and the deceased Govindammal was practically double his age. She was a woman possessed of some property and the appellant was employed by her as a farm-servant to look after the cultivation. During the course of this service, the appellant became intimate with the deceased and stayed in the house of the deceased. Contemporaneously with the appellant’s criminal intimacy the deceased was also carrying on with P. W. 5, a cooly, as spoken to by P.W.4. The appellant’s desire was that P. W. 4, a young daughter of the deceased, was to be married to the appellant and to that the deceased was a consenting party, but no marriage took place. Just about four months prio