Test of Rare Intelligence

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 161, 11 July 1939, Page 12

Test of Rare Intelligence

A medical witness was being tested in the Auckland Supreme Court on his observation of the mental capacity of a patient who had been under his care, and in whom he had not noticed, he said, any sign of weakening mentality. Another professional witness was in the offing, whose evidence was expected to indicate that the patient had instructed him about the filling in of his income tax returns. “.Do you think,” asked counsel of the first witness, “that if the patient answered questions as to tho income tax returns incorrectly that would indicate mental incapacity?” The doctor gave it as his view that such a failure did not necessarily moan that the patient- was weak-minded. “It would, I think, be an indication that his mental capacity was very high if he correctly answered the questions in his income tax forms,” he odded. And even his Honour chuckled. Ho (testily, after losing heavily at bridge): You might have guessed I had no heart. Wife: Quite; but I thought you had a brain, dear.