[27]
It has been found advantageous at times when confronted with an honest and respectable witness to
refrain from pressing him hard, since it is often the
case that those who would have defended themselves
manfully against attack are mollified by courtesy.
But every question is either concerned with the
case itself or with something outside the case. As
regards the first type of question counsel for the
[p. 185]
defence may, by adopting a method which I have
already recommended for the prosecutor,1 namely by
commencing his examination with questions of an
apparently irrelevant and innocent character and
then by comparing previous with subsequent replies,
frequently lead witnesses into such a position that
it becomes possible to extort useful admissions from
them against their will.
1 Alive, § 17, 18.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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