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NEW LAW BOOKS.
// is the intention of The Green Bag to have its book reviews written by competent reviewers. The usual custom of magazines is to confine book notices to books sent in for review. At the request of subscribers, however, The Green Bag will be glad to review or notice any recently published law book, whether re ceivedfor review or not.
THE ART OF CROSS-EXAMINATION. By Fran cis L. Wdlman. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1903. Cloth, $2.50 (283 pp.). This book derives its chief value and in terest from the fact that the author, as as sistant corporation counsel and assistant dis trict attorney of the city of New York, has had great experience with witnesses and with juries. It is encouraging to find him saying: "In the vast majority of trials, the modern juryman, and especially the modern city jury man,—it is in our large cities that the great est number of litigated cases is tried,—comes as near being the model arbiter of fact as the most optimistic champion of the institution of trial by jury could desire." (p. 14). Such sane words prepare the reader for a sensible presentation of the art of cross-examination. The expectation is well fulfilled. The author's general theory may be gathered from the following quotations : "No cause reaches the stage of litigation unless there are two sides to it. If the wit nesses on one side deny or qualify the state ments made by those on the other, which side is telling the truth? Not necessarily which side is offering perjured testimony,—there is far less intentional perjury in the courts than the inexperienced would believe,—but which side is honestly mistaken?—for, on the other hand, evidence itself is far less trustworthy than the public usually realizes. The opinions of which side are warped by prejudice or blinded by ignorance? Which side has had the power or opportunity of correct observa tion? How shall we tell, how make it appar ent to a jury of disinterested men who are to decide between the litigants? Obviously, by the means of cross-examination" (p. 23).
"It is absurd to suppose that any witness who has sworn positively to a certain set of facts, even if he has inadvertently stretched the truth, is going to be readily induced by a lawyer to alter them and acknowledge his mistake. People as a rule do not reflect up on their meagre opportunities for observing facts, and rarely suspect the frailty of their own powers of observation. They come to court, when summoned as witnesses, pre pared to tell what they think they know; and in the beginning they resent an attack upon their story as they would one upon their in tegrity. If the cross-examiner allosvs the witness to see, by his manner toward him at the start, that he distrusts his integrity, he will straighten himself in the witness chair and mentally defy him at once. If, on the other hand, the counsel's manner is court eous and conciliatory, the witness will soon lose the fear all witnesses have of the crossexaminer, and can almost imperceptibly be induced to enter into a discussion of his testi mony in a fair-minded spirit, which, if the cross-examiner is clever, will soon disclose the weak points in the testimony" (pp. 2728). "It is the love of combat which every man possesses that fastens the attention of the jury upon the progress of the trial. The counsel who has a pleasant personality; who speaks with apparent frankness; who appears to be an earnest searcher after truth; who : courteous to those who testify against bls who avoids delaying constantly the prrujjy of the trial by innumerable objecjj;rt tna[ exceptions to perhaps incompeteij less evidence; who seems to k¿s ¡n is about and sits down whe^d Charles pushed it, exhibiting a s¿n v The p,e all occasions-he it fc the „юге recent mosphere m favor of Olney and John Q resents, a powerful^ j^^ M nuenceEven with if, theovin Cr%I"6™ that ., "0 P™1 . diet. monv, the verd" 0" tlle 'SS"e,was ovei" amount will h a™ W^ ^ Cases in 1C 'Yorke), Eldon (Scott), er wasttorneys of record n^'6 a peculiar .n themselves and offer the guaran-
