Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/324

 295 der. It was incurred by those who wilfully and wantonly slew a fellow-man with a stone or with an implement of stone or iron. It was likewise the punishment meted out to all persons who resided in a town the inhab itants of which had allowed themselves to be seduced to idolatry and paganism. Strangulation was a form of death by suf focation. It was effected as in burning. The culprit stood up to his knees in loose earth. A soft cloth containing a cord was wound once round his neck. The ends being

pulled in opposite directions, life was soon ex tinct. This mode of death was the punish ment of one who struck his father or his mother; of any one stealing a fellow Israel ite; of a false prophet; of an elder or provincial judge who taught or acted con trary to the decision of the Great Synhedrin of Jerusalem; and of some other crimes against public morals. These four deaths, as above described, were the only modes of execution in accord ance with Hebrew Law.

BROWBEATING AND VITUPERATION. N English writer, commenting upon the conduct of counsel, says : — "The practice of browbeating witnesses and vituperating the opposite parties in a cause is carried to a most unseemly length in our courts of law. I have often wondered that the presiding judges should sit silently on the bench while so scandalous a scene is passing before their eyes. In the case of the parties who are vituperated, there is no redress. They are not allowed to de fend themselves in court; nor can they, however coarse and libellous the attack, proceed by an ac tion at law against their traducer. It is, therefore, to say the least on the subject, unmanly on the part of counsel to go out of their way to vituper ate and vilify parties whose mouths are shut and whose hands are tied; and it is wrong in the pre siding judge to suffer such unbecoming things to be done in court. As regards the browbeating of witnesses, there can be no question that, in stead of promoting the ends of justice, such a course often defeats them." It would appear that the abusive and browbeating system is by no means a nov elty in the profession. It seems to have flourished in great vigor so far back as the days of Sir Walter Raleigh. D'Israeli, in the second series of his " Curiosities of Lit erature," gives an account of the way in which that distinguished man was abused

and traduced by no less a personage than Sir Edward Coke himself, who was, at the time of Sir Walter's trial, Attorney-General. The remarks with which D'Israeli prefaces his specimens of Coke's abuse of Sir Walter are worthy of quotation, as well as the spe cimens themselves. He says, speaking of Coke : — "This great lawyer, perhaps, set the example of that style of raillery and invective at our bar which the egotism and craven insolence of some of our lawyers include in their practice at the bar. It may be useful to bring to recollection Coke's vituperative style in the following dialogue, so beautiful in its contrast with that of the great vic tim before him. The Attorney-General had not sufficient evidence to bring the obscure conspiracy home to Raleigh; but Coke well knew that James the First had reason to dislike the hero of his age, who was early engaged against the Scottish inter ests, and betrayed by the ambidexterous Cecil. Coke struck at Raleigh as a sacrifice to his own political ambition; but his personal hatred was now sharpened by the fine genius and elegant lit erature of the man, — faculties and acquisitions the lawyer so heartily contemned." D'Israeli, after these prefatory observa tions, proceeds to give some specimens of the vituperation which Coke heaped upon Raleigh, in the following dialogue between