In the case of Reg. _v._ Whitmarsh (Central Criminal Court, Sept. 19, 20, 21, 1896), 62 J.P. 680. Upon an indictment for the murder of a woman, who died as the result of the prisoner having used certain instruments or other means upon her with the intent to procure her miscarriage, it was shown that an inspector of police had seen her at Charing Cross Hospital. He asked her questions, and from her answers he wrote down a statement. The woman signed it. On July 7 the woman appeared to be in a dying condition, and was aware of it. She said she feared she must die, and asked to see her mother and a clergyman. The doctor told her that he had given up all hope, and that she might not live to see her mother. A magistrate saw her shortly afterwards, and read over to her the statement she made on June 29, and he affixed to it the following note, “This statement was read over to Alice Bayley by me, and is referred to in her dying declaration,” and signed. _Held_ (Darling, J.), that though this statement might be admissible, it had better not be admitted in evidence. On the same day the woman had also made a statement to the magistrate, of which he had taken note, but before it was finished she became exhausted. The magistrate then took the statement of June 29, repeated portions of it to her in his own words, wrote these down, and asked her if it was correct. He then read the whole statement to her and she signed it. The statement commenced, “Having the fear of death before me, and being without hope of recovery”--concluding with the words, “And the statement I made on the 29th of June, and have now heard read over, is true.” Justice Darling held this statement was admissible as a dying declaration. In the case of Rex _v._ Smith, 65 J.P. 426 (Bruce, J., Central Criminal Court). A magistrate and a doctor visited a dying woman for the purpose of taking her statement. In reply to a question put to her by one of them, she said, “I am aware that I am seriously ill.” The magistrate asked her questions and the doctor wrote down the answers. At the trial the statement was objected to as inadmissible as a dying declaration on two grounds: Firstly, that the statement consists only of answers to questions put to her by the magistrate, and so comes within the ruling of Cave, J., in Reg. _v._ Mitchell, 17 Cox C.C. 503, that “a declaration should be taken down in the exact words which the person who makes it uses, in order that it may be possible from those words to arrive precisely at what the person meant. When a statement is not the _ipsissima verba_ of the person making it, but is composed of a mixture of questions and answers, there are several objections open to its reception in evidence.... In the first place, the questions may be leading questions, and in the condition of a person making a dying declaration there is always very great danger of leading questions being answered without their force and effect being fully comprehended.”