THE MATTER OF CROSS-EXAMINATION
straight into Mr. Beecher's eyes and said, "Do you still consider that sound doctrine?" Mr. Beecher replied, "I do." The inference a juryman might draw from this question and answer would constitute a subtle argument upon that branch of the case.
The entire effect of the testimony of an adverse witness can sometimes be destroyed by a pleasant little passage-at-arms in which he is finally held up to ridicule before the jury, and all that he has previously said against you disappears in the laugh that accompanies him from the witness box. In a recent Metropolitan Street Railway case a witness who had been badgered rather persistently on cross-examination, finally straightened himself up in the witness chair and said pertly, "I have not come here asking you to play with me. Do you take me for Anna Held?"[1] "I was not thinking of Anna Held," replied the counsel quietly; "supposing you try Ananias!" The witness was enraged, the jury laughed, and the lawyer, who had really made nothing out of the witness up to this time, sat down.
These little triumphs are, however, by no means always one-sided. Often, if the council gives him an opening, a clever witness will counter on him in a most humiliating fashion, certain to meet with the hearty approval of jury and audience. At the Worster Assizes, in England, a case was being tried which involved the soundness of a
- ↑ This occurrence was at the time when the actress Anna Held was singing her popular stage song, "Won't you come and play with me."
47
