Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/240

 order to see what was going on. He was sane, the only sane man there. Now if he did not see it, it is because it did not take place, and if it did not take place, the insane men called here as witnesses could not have seen it. Do you see the point? Can you answer it? Let me put it again. It is not in mortal mind to believe that this man could have seen such a transaction as he describes and ever have forgotten it. Forget it when he writes his article the night he leaves the asylum and sells it to the morning World! Forget it two days afterward when he makes a second important affidavit! He makes still another statement, and does not mention it, and even testifies at the coroner's inquest two weeks later, and leaves it out. Can the human mind draw any other inference from these facts than that he never saw it—because he could not have forgotten it if he had ever seen it? If he never saw it, it did not take place. He was on the spot, sane, and watching everything that went on, for the very purpose of reporting it. Now if this sheet incident did not take place, the insane men could not have seen it. This disposes not only of Minnock, but of all the testimony in the People's case. In order to say by your verdict that that sheet incident took place, you have got to find something that is contrary to all human experience; that is, that this man, Minnock, having seen the horrible strangling with the sheet, as he described, could possibly have immediately forgotten it."