A Tale of an Oath.

Manawatu Herald, 5 August 1899, Page 2

A Tale of an Oath.

The various form? of oath taking, even in this country, are of con* siderable interest-, and would certainly form a f iscinaliog chapter in connection jvir.b tha peculiarities of lpgal lori. It would not, bowever, bs easy to 4 find an ioetipce in which anything likis stf queer a ra dium of attestation w-11 employed as a " gniio'Wd black cockatoo." But no less an extraordinary medium than that was what the poliofrpf a country district in New South Wales had to provide thi other dayJor a fanciful Chinaman, who dec'iufd to swear on anything else. Headless fowls were brought, but in vain ; and, as the antler wag important, even a black Bw.m, a luxury surely for a Chinese witness, was suggested only to be immediacy refused. After Rome tima hid elapsed, and when the representatives of the law seemed quits at their wits' a dead cockatoo of the required ijue of one of the other Celestial?, "who mulcted the anxious officials in 10) for the bird. Tb>n the solemn 'and peculiar path was duly administered on which the difficult witness, declared he knew nothing about 1 the case, and sat down smiling/! "