Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/163

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(6)

"Would you send this venerable and honorable man to his grave with the taint of criminal conviction upon his great name?"

Thus Delancey Nicoll inquired of the jury today in Judge Hard's court, where William E. Williams, aged 83, for forty years a leader of the American bar, is being tried with three other directors of the Cotton Trust on the charge of criminally conspiring to violate the Sherman Anti-trust Law.


(7)


"Never in the twenty years that I have been at the head of the women's department of Blank University have I discriminated against any student because of race or religion."

This statement made on the witness stand today was the answer of Dean Sarah Brown to the charge preferred by Miss Della Smith in her $10,000 slander suit against Dr. Brown, that she had been driven out of the university because of her religious views.


Forms for Testimony. The bodies of stories of trials and investigations, like those of speeches and reports, consist of direct quotations of the most significant testimony or arguments, with indirect quotations or summaries of other parts not worth quoting verbatim. The same general principles apply, except when it is necessary to give question and answer in direct or cross examination of witnesses in order to bring out significant points. Several forms are used for verbatim reports of such testimony. Sometimes, particularly in New York papers, the attorney's questions are preceded by the letter "Q" and the witness's answers by the letter "A," each question with its answer constituting a separate paragraph. More commonly, the questions and answers