“Stop—stop—stop,” vociferated the judge, shutting his ears with horror, “that’s a leading question.”
“What’s a leading question?”
“One which leads the mind of the witness to the answer you want from him.”
“But I must ask him, if Jack seized him by the neck,” pleaded Grace.
“Indeed you must not,” replied Mr. Justice Davis. “In the first place, you have no right to assume that it was Jack just yet; and in the second, you must not lead. Ask him to tell what happened.”
“Well! what happened?”
I replied that a man had seized me by the throat, &c., &c., &c., as narrated by Charley.
“And was yours a gold hunting-watch, made by Dent?” continued the fair counsel, “and num—I mean, what was your watch like? Is that right?”
This last question was addressed to Charley.
“It is not usual,” he replied, “for learned counsel to ask the judge if ‘that’s right,’ but the question was a proper one. Suppose it answered. Who is your next witness?”
“Mrs. Jack.”
“You cannot call her. She is the prisoner’s wife; or, what comes to the same thing in criminal proceedings, she is ostensibly such. Our law refuses to hear the husband or wife of the accused, as a witness for or against him or her.”
“What am I to do, then!” said Grace, with a puzzled look. “Of course I must prove that Jack had the watch once.”
“Mrs. Jones can prove that a watch arrived at Birmingham from somebody.”
“Exactly: but that does not inculpate Jack.”
“Of course not,” interrupted that criminal, insolently. “I am not responsible for what any fellow may send my missus in my absence. Cut along!”
“It is not usual,” said Charley, with mock gravity, “for the prisoner at the bar to tell the court to ‘cut along.’ But to continue our proofs. Mrs. Jones writes a letter to this somebody. You trace it through the post to Jack.”
“Ha! ha!” exclaimed Grace. “Now we have him!”
“Deuce a bit!” exclaims Jack. “Am I to be found guilty, because some old woman at Birmingham chooses to send me a letter, acknowledging the receipt of a watch which I never sent?”
“But when we find you trying to sell the pawn-ticket of the watch, which was inclosed in that letter, and discover that you must have been in possession of the stolen property almost immediately after it had been stolen, your chances begin to assume an icthyological aspect,” observed the learned judge.
“Now I see exactly what I shall do,” said Grace. “I shall ask Mrs. Jones what was written on the pawn-ticket, to show that the one she sent to Jack was the same he tried to sell.”
“Oh dear me,” replied Charley, “that won’t do at all. When anything is in writing, you must produce the writing itself. Words fade from the memory; writings remain unaltered, says our law. You must produce the pawn-ticket.”
“Jack!” said the counsel for the prosecution, “Just hand over the pawn-ticket.”
“I’m sure I shall do no such thing,” responded the prisoner. “I’m not going to help you to convict me.”
“Very well, then,” said Charley, “you have done quite right, Grace. You have traced the ticket into his possession, and have given him notice to produce it. You should have given it in writing some days ago; but never mind. He has refused to produce the document; therefore you may now ask Mrs. Jones the question you proposed. In legal language, ‘give secondary evidence of it.’ Her story is told. Now go on. Whom do you call?”
“The pawnbroker who sold the watch to your respectable elderly gentleman.”
“But you have not got the watch into his shop yet.”
“Oh yes, I have. Mrs. Jones sent her daughter with it.”
“How are the jury to know that the watch sent by Jack, was the same watch that Miss Jones pawned—or that she pawned the watch at all?”
“Oh, I shall prove all that,” said Grace. “But how?”
“Why, you stupid thing, by asking Mrs. Jones what her daughter told her when she came back.”
“Yes, but you cannot ask people what other people tell them; that is hearsay evidence and inadmissible.”
“What nonsense!”
“Indeed,” said Charley, “it is not nonsense. Every witness must speak from his own knowledge; else how is it possible to test the value of his evidence. You must call Miss Jones; and when you have shown that she deposited the watch with the pawnbroker, and received from him a ticket, which she gave to her mother, who forwarded it to Jack—and when you call the postman to prove that he delivered a letter, with a Birmingham postmark, to Jack in London, in due course, and that the parcel containing the watch was despatched from London the day after the robbery, and have proved that the handwriting on it is Jack’s, and the prosecutor has identified the watch,—then you may tell the jury, that as the prisoner was in possession of the stolen property almost immediately after it had been stolen, that they may, if it so please them, conclude that Jack is the thief, unless he can give some reasonable account of how he came by it. Perhaps you will admit now that a prosecution is not the simple affair that you supposed it to be. Now, Jack, for your defence.”
“I shall give a reasonable account of how I came possessed of this fellow’s trumpery watch. I shall prove”
“Take care what you are about,” said Charley. “If you call witnesses, Grace may make a speech in reply, and so will have the last word with the jury.”
“I don’t care. The watch was sold to me by two men”
“Take my advice, Jack,” said the learned judge, “and make it one.”
“Why?”
