Burn, J.

1. The appellant has been convicted by the learned Sessions Judge of Anantapur for murdering a little boy on 18th February 1987 and has been sentermed to death. This is one of those sadly too frequent cases in which children are murdered for the sake of jewellery on them. There is no reason to distrust the evidence of the mother of the little boy (P.W. l) who says that on the night of 18th February her little boy ran out to play after taking his evening meal, wearing a pair of gold bangles and a pair of gold earrings When the little boys corpse was found by the side of the donka leading from the village towards Dharmapuram, the jewels had been removed. The boy had been murdered apparently by dropping a large stone upon his head. Two blood, stained stones were found close by, one weighing about one and half maunds and the other quite a small one. There can be no doubt but that the child was murdered in this brutal fashion for the sake of the jewels which he was wearing.

2. The evidence against the appellant which the Judge has accepted is wholly of a circumstantial nature. The appellant is said to be a eunuch, who is a native apparently of Malabar; but the mother of t