A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIVJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIV
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Fiction
Counsel.--"Now then for another question, my man. I see you are a good
downright fellow, who will speak the truth for or against, without
caring. Did you and the head-gardener ever have any quarrel?"
Witness.--"We once had a bit of a tiff."
Counsel.--"What was it about?"
The counsel for the prosecution objected to the question. The judge
said he did not see how it bore on the examination-in-chief; but Mr.
B---- insisted, and he was supported strongly by his leader, who
declared that the answer of the witness would immediately show the
connexion. If it did not, it could be struck out of the evidence.
Counsel for the crown.--"After the impression has been produced?"
Counsel for the defence.--"Not at all. The cause of the quarrel is
immediately connected with the examination-in-chief. My learned friend
does not venture to put the question in a leading shape, as some
counsel would not scruple to do. But if we are overruled, I will so
frame the question in one minute as to be unobjectionable in point of
form, and perhaps less pleasant to those who seek a conviction, than
in its present shape."
He spoke with some heat, and the question was allowed, and repeated.
Witness.--"Why, it was in January last, when there was little to be
done in the garden, and I went away a bit before the time, because it
was our club night. He jawed me about it, and said as long as he was
head-gardener the men should keep their time."
Counsel.--"On the night of the fifth of February, I think you said
that you did not know the prisoner had returned till you saw him?"
Witness.--"No, that I didn't."
Counsel, emphatically.--"I have done."
Witness re-examined.--"I think it was five o'clock when I met the
prisoner, I cannot exactly say. I have a watch, but I do not always
look at it: I did not that night. I guessed it was five, and I went."
The next witness was Mr. Andrew Woodyard, surgeon, who deposed that he
had examined the dead body of a person who, he was informed, had been
found in the grounds of Mr. Arthur Tracy, of Northferry House. He had
discovered, he said, severe injuries on the head, consisting of a
contusion over the left temple, and a contused wound further back, on
the same side, which had fractured the skull and injured the brain.
The latter was the immediate cause of death. It must have been
inflicted with a sharp instrument. A blow from a Dutch hoe would
probably produce all the appearances which he had observed. He had no
doubt that the wound was the cause of death.
Counsel for the prosecution.--"Would such a blow always produce death
as an inevitable consequence?"
Witness.--"No."
Counsel.--"In what cases do you think, Mr. Woodyard, a more favourable
result might be anticipated?"
Witness.--"In cases of idiots, of atheists, and of young lawyers: that
is to say, where the brain is soft, is wanting, or is wrong placed."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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