“estate, and he said he would!” finished the old woman innocently.

“If your Honor please, I will excuse the witness.  And I move that her answers be stricken out!” cried Chanler savagely.

The old lady was assisted from the stand, but as she made her way with difficulty towards the door of the court-room she could be heard repeating stubbornly: 

“I told him to put it into real estate, and he said he would!”

Almost needless to say, Hackett was convicted and sentenced to seven years in State’s prison.

To recapitulate, the quickness and positiveness of women make them ordinarily better witnesses than men; they are vastly more difficult to cross-examine; their sex protects them from many of the most effective weapons of the lawyer, with the result that they are the more ready to yield to prevarication; and, even where the possibility of complete and unrestricted cross-examination is afforded, their tendency to inaccurately inferential reasoning, and their elusiveness in dodging from one conclusion to another, render the opportunity of little value.

In general, however, women’s testimony differs little in quality from that of men, all testimony being subject to the same three great limitations irrespective of the sex of the witness, and the conclusions set forth above are merely the result of an effort on the part of the writer to comment somewhat upon those small differences which, under close scrutiny, may fairly be said to exist.  These differences are quite as noticeable at the breakfast-table as in the court-room; and are no more patent to the advocate than to the ordinary male animal whose forehead habitually reddens when he hears the unanswerable reason which, in default of all others, explains and glorifies the mental action of his wife, sister or mother:  “Just because!”

AS COMPLAINANTS AND DEFENDANTS

The ratio of women to men indicted and tried for crime is, roughly, about one to ten.  Could adequate statistics be procured, the proportion of female to male complainants in criminal cases would very likely prove to be about the same:  In a very substantial proportion, therefore, of all prosecutions for crime a woman is one of the chief actors.  The law of the land compels the female prisoner to submit the question of her guilt or innocence to twelve individuals of the opposite sex; and permits the female complainant to rehearse the story of her wrongs before the same collection of colossal intellects and adamantine hearts.

The first thing the ordinary woman hastens to do if she be summoned to appear in a court of justice is not, as might be expected, to think over her testimony or try to recall facts obliterated or confused by time, but to buy a new hat; and precisely the same thing is true of the female defendant called to the bar of justice, whether it be for stealing a pair of gloves or poisoning her lover.