THE ART OF CROSS-EXAMINATION
lies," and complained of as "lending the authority of their example to the abuse of cross-examination to credit which was quickly followed by barristers of inferior positions, among whom the practice was spreading of assailing witnesses with what was not unfairly called a system of innuendoes, suggestions, and bullying from which sensitive persons recoil." And Mr. Charles Gill, one of the many imitators of Russell's domineering style, was criticised as "bettering the instructions of his elders."
The complaint against Russell was that by his practices as displayed in the Osborne case—robbery of jewels—not only may a man's, or a woman's, whole past be laid bare to malignant comment and public curiosity, but there is no means afforded by the courts of showing how the facts really stood or of producing evidence to repel the damaging charges.
Lord Bramwell, in an article published originally in Nineteenth Century for February, 1892, and republished in legal periodicals all over the world, strongly defends the methods of Sir Charles Russell and his imitators. Lord Bramwell claimed to speak after an experience of forty-seven years' practice at the Bar and on the bench, and long acquaintance with the legal profession.
"A judge's sentence for a crime, however much repented of, is not the only punishment; there is the consequent loss of character in addition, which should confront such a person whenever called to the witness-stand." "Women who carry on illicit intercourse, and
126
