REMARKABLE CROSS-EXAMINATION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXII, Issue 12415, 13 March 1908, Page 4

REMARKABLE CROSS-EXAMINA-TION.

Revkrsinq the usual order of things, a jury at the Sydney Quarter Sessions the other day took a case from the judge. For three hours the hearing had dragged on with little evidence as to tact and a great quantity on the question of character. Mr H. Harris, who piosecuted for the Crown, see mod to have discovered a mine of unreliable information as to the .'life of the person accused. He asked him if he had not been dismissed from the service of a bank on account ot a drunken spree? The man so interrogated indignantly protested against fhe question. "It i 9 a scandalous accusation,' he said, "and I think Mr Harris should be ashamed to put it." Judge Docker sternly demanded an answer. j The prisoner gave it in full. He called l the manager of the institution, who said that there could be no truth in 1 the calumny. The accused, after 14 yeare' service, had l^ft the bank to better himself. The clients had given him a ■ banquet and pui^e of sovereigns,, and the bank supplemented the tribute by a present of 12 months' salary. The next insinuation of the prosecution was in regard to a fire in the premises where the" accused subsequently carried on business. Tt was not pushed any further an insinuation, however, nor was a suggestion 'that the accused had* levied blackmail. After failing to substantiate these and other charges, Mr Harris asked if the accused had not been warned off Randwick? He was told again that he must have been misinformed. "Don't you owe <£300 to bookmakers?" he persisted. "Yes,", the accused admitted, but he explained to his own counsel (Mr James) that he had put a commission on for a man, and when the l»orse, instead of romping home, had run into a fence, that man had refused to pay up on settling day. "I am paying it off,"' he further explained, 'and I can go and n.ake my ordinary 10s bets the same as ever." Mr James, in his address., said that in the whole of his 15 years' experience of the .Bar this attack by the Crown on a man's character was remarkable. The jury, through its foreman, then said it did not want to hear Mr Har ris or his Honor's summing up, and found the accused not guilty.