Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/226

 Counsel. "When you wrote that Charcot taught you to reduce your respirations to two a minute, so as to make your body insensible to pain, was that fiction?"

Witness. "Purely imagination."

Court (interrupting). "Counsellor, I will not allow you to go further in this line of inquiry. The witness himself says his article was almost entirely fiction, some of it founded upon fact. I will allow you the greatest latitude in a proper way, but not in this direction."

Counsel. "Your Honor does not catch the point."

Court. "I do not think I do."

Counsel. "This prosecution was started by a newspaper article written by the witness, and published in the morning Journal. It is the claim of the defence that the newspaper article was a mixture of fact and fiction, mostly fiction. The witness has already admitted that the history of his life, published but a few months ago, and written and signed by himself and sold as a history of his life, was a mixture of fact and fiction, mostly fiction. Would it not be instructive to the jury to learn from the lips of the witness himself how far he dressed up the pretended history of his own life, that they may draw from it some inference as to how far he has like-wise dressed up the article which was the origin of this prosecution?"

Court. "I shall grant you the greatest latitude in examination of the witness in regard to the newspaper article which he published in regard to this case, but I