displays a delicacy of feeling which is absent from the great majority of retorts from the witness-box. Sir Frank Lockwood was not the only advocate who questioned a witness as to the measurement of distance and found the task an unpleasant one. A witness, being crossexamined as to his distance from a particu lar place, answered very promptly, "I was just four yards, two feet, and six inches off." "And how came you to be so exact in the matter?" asked the counsel, with a signifi cant look upon his inquiring countenance. "Because," came the unexpected reply, " I expected some fool or other would ask me, and so I measured it." Humor in the witness-box is not nearly so plentiful as it used to be, if one may judge from the stories told in the memoirs of the leading advocates of days gone by. Probably one reason for the decline is that the present generation of counsel adopt towards witnesses a more conciliatory tone. The most successful cross-examiners are those who have most thoroughly grasped the meaning of the familiar saying that honey catches more flies than vinegar. A witness requires to be provoked in order to be witty, he scarcely gets a chance unless he is bullied. This opportunity, now grown rather rare, was always at hand when the " badger ing " process was common in the courts. Baron Alderson once remarked to an advo cate who was notorious for the personal nature of the questions he addressed to wit nesses, " Really you seem to think that the art of cross-examination is to examine crossly." Such an impression was apt to lead to very unpleasant results for the advo cate who lay under it. One of the neatest instances of the tables being turned upon a bullying counsel was afforded by a clergyman, who gave evidence at the Worcester Assizes in a horse-dealing case. He gave a somewhat confused ac count of the transaction in dispute and the cross-examining counsel, after making sev
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eral blustering but ineffective attempts to obtain a more satisfactory statement, said, "Pray, sir, do you know the difference between a horse and a cow?" "I acknowl edge my ignorance," replied the reverend gentleman. " I hardly know the difference between a horse and a cow, or between a bull and a bully — only a bull, I am told, has horns, and a bully " — here he made a respectful bow to the advocate — " luckily for me, has none." Quite as palpable was the hit of the far mer who, though severely cross-examined on the matter, remained very positive as to the identity of some ducks which he alleged had been stolen from him. "How can you be so certain?" asked the counsel for the prisoner; " I have some ducks of the same kind in my own possession." " Very likely," was the cool answer of the farmer, " those are not the only ducks I've had stolen." Sometimes the witness has scored off the judge, but here again the cause of his humor has usually been a display of rudeness on the bench. A witness, whose veracity bore no resemblance to the reputation of Caesar's wife, once deviated into the truth. " Ah," said the judge, "he's telling the truth now. I can see it by his natural embarrassment." It is related that a Quaker went into the witness-box at Guildhall without the char acteristic costume of his sect, and that Lord Ellenborough, having inquired if he was really a Quaker, and received an answer in the affirmative, said, " Do you really mean to impose upon the court by appearing here in the disguise of a reasonable being? " It is difficult to imagine any living occupant on the bench making such observations as these. In Lord Ellenborough's day the at titude of the bench towards the witness-box was far less considerate than at the present time, and it was easy for a conflict to take place in which the judge got the worst of it. Such an experience once befell Lord Ellenborough himself. A bricklayer appeared before the distinguished judge in clothes
