CHAPTER XI
THE CROSS-EXAMINATION OF RICHARD PIGOTT BY SIR CHARLES
RUSSELL BEFORE THE PARNELL COMMISSION
The modern method of studying any subject, or acquiring any art, is the inductive method. This is illustrated in our law schools, where to a large extent actual cases are studied, to get at the principles of law instead of acquiring those principles solely through the a priori method of the study of text-books.
As already indicated, this method is also the only way to become a master of the art of cross-examination, and, in addition to actual personal experience, it is important to study the methods of great cross-examiners, or those whose extended experience makes them safe guides to follow.
Hence, the writer believes it would be decidedly helpful to the students of the art of cross-examination to have placed before them, in a convenient and somewhat condensed form, some good illustrations of the methods of well-known cross-examiners as exhibited in actual practice, in the cross-examination of important witnesses in famous trials.
175