“Perhaps the testimony which least deserves credit with a jury,” says the author, “is that of skilled witnesses. These gentlemen are usually required to speak, not to facts, but to opinions; and when this is the case it is often quite surprising to see with what facility, and to what an extent, their views can be made to correspond with the wishes or the interests of the parties who call them. They do not, indeed, wilfully misrepresent what they think, but their judgments become so warped by regarding the subject in one point of view, that even when conscientiously disposed, they are incapable of forming an independent opinion. Being zealous partisans, their Belief becomes synonymous with Faith as defined by the Apostle, and it too often is but ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ To adopt the language of Lord Campbell, ‘skilled witnesses come with such a bias on their minds to support the cause in which they are embarked, that hardly any weight should be given to their evidence.’” The first criticism of Mr. Price’s evidence is that he is not an expert on the subject, and indeed he made no pretence of being one. He knew nothing about the subject beforehand, and his experiments and reading were principally done after the event. For all he knows to the contrary, the pith of all hairs may be identical. He made one admission in the course of his cross-examination which absolutely destroyed the probative force of his evidence. In his post-factum observations he had examined hairs from several auburn heads, and he admitted that he had found some hair as like Alma Tirtschke’s as the hairs from the blankets. The “proof,” therefore, resulting from Mr. Price’s evidence may be reduced to an elementary syllogism as follows:— This hair is like Alma’s. All hair like Alma’s is not Alma’s. Therefore, this hair may (or may not) be Alma’s. It was said earlier that Mr. Price might, on the facts he deposed to, have been a powerful witness for the defence. Let us show how this is so. Suppose, having deposed to the examination of the two sets of hairs, exactly as given previously, he had been examined by Counsel for the Defence, and had answered in the following way, would not his answers have been fully justified by what he had already stated?:— Defendant’s Counsel—Having examined the two sets of hair, are you of opinion they did not come from the same head?—I am. Can you give reasons for your opinion?—I can, many.