CROSS-EXAMINATION IN COURTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 95, 19 May 1909, Page 4

CROSS-EXAMINATION IN COURTS

A writer i-.i tin- Tlawkc.'s Bay Herald protests vigorously against the license given to lawyers' when cross-examining witnesses in the witness-box. "I have, seen a. poor servant girl, who happened to he in the house when a rumpus occurred, and was called as a witness," he says, "standing trembling u ,„l eryincr i n the box while a .brutal lawyer "poured forth streams of contempt, sneers, insults', and jeers upon her because her evidence was injurious to his client. And all tV tune the Magistrate a most kindly, courteous old gentleman in private life-sat 'by utterly indifferent to the poor girl's suffering. A word from linn could hare stopped it all, but a life spent in a H'olice Court makes a man as unfeeling as a machine, and tlic refinement of the private person is crushed bv the pililes* tyranny of the law. It is quite tune that the victims of the svstem should protest, and it is throw* the J ivss alone tihat we can make our voice heard. If every person who lias experienced the cruelty of cross-examin-ation, as it is gwierally conducted, were to write his experiences, we might ob.tain some mitigation of this abuse."