It is essential that the testimony given by the witness alleged to be false must be material to the issue, otherwise there is no offense, however false and corrupt the testimony may have been.62

But the degree of the materiality of the matter testified to is of no importance, for if it tends to prove the point in issue that is enough. Questions affecting the credibility of a person as a witness are material and sufficient.63

58 Johnson vs. State, 76 Ga., 790;

State vs. Keene, 26 Me.. 33; O'Reilly vs. People, 86 N. Y., 154.

59 Maynard vs. People, 135 Ill., 425;

Hereford vs. People, 197 Ill., 222, 228. 60 Urquhart vs. State, 103 Ala., 90;

Com. vs. Hillenbrand, 96 Ky., 407. 61 U. S. vs. Babcock, 4 McClain (U.

S.). 115.

62 State vs. Halloway, 2 N. & M. (S. C), 118; Stanley vs. U. S., 1 Okla., 333; Miller vs. State, 15 Fla., 577; State vs. Hobbs, 40 N. H, 229; Saunders vs. People, 124 Ill., 218; Hambree vs. State, 52 Ala., 242; Nelson vs. State, 47 Miss., 621; Meeks vs. State Tex. Cr., 420, before grand jury when not material.

So the answers of a witness on cross-examination touching his credibility are material to the issue, however discursive they may be.64

Thus if a witness testifies that he never had been tried in the criminal court and had never been in custody at a certain station, knowing such testimony to be false, he commits perjury.65

So also wilful false swearing in attempting to identify a person by a photograph where the identity of the person is material in a prosecution for forgery is sufficient on which to assign perjury.66