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Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 111, 13 May 1939, Page 6

One of the elementary principles of legal examination and cross-examina-tion is that questions put to witnesses shall be plain and direct. Judges and magistrates keep a watchful eye on counsel lest.they depart from this procedure and put words into the mouths of witnesses. In the Supreme Court, Dunedin, Mr Justice Blair took exception to the form in which counsel was putting a question, asserting that that form ruled out the possibility of a direct negative or affirmative reply. Ilis Honour shrewdly exemplified his point by himself putting the classical question to counsel: “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?*' and asked for a “Yes” or “No” reply. Counsel had to admit that he could not answer. Wr hasten to add, of course, that His Hon our was putting a purely rhetorical ques-