Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/150

 duced the same effect on a witness that a cobra produces on a rabbit.' In a certain case he appeared on the wrong side. Thirty-two witnesses were called, thirty-one on the wrong side, and one on the right side. Not one of the thirty-one was broken down in cross-examination; but the one on the right side was utterly annihilated by Russell.

How is Russell getting on?' a friend asked one of the judges of the Parnell Commission during the days of Pigott's cross-examination. 'Master Charlie is bowling very straight,' was the answer. 'Master Charlie' always bowled 'very straight,' and the man at the wicket generally came quickly to grief. I have myself seen him approach a witness with great gentleness—the gentleness of a lion reconnoitring his prey. I have also seen him fly at a witness with the fierceness of a tiger. But, gentle or fierce, he must have always looked a very ugly object to the man who had gone into the box to lie."

Rufus Choate had little of Russell's natural force with which to command his witnesses; his effort was to magnetize, he was called "the wizard of the court room." He employed an entirely different method in his cross-examinations. He never assaulted a witness as if determined to browbeat him. "Commenting once on the cross-examination of a certain eminent counsellor at the Boston Bar with decided disapprobation, Choate said, 'This man goes at a witness in such a way that he in-