The English dislike to allow the evidence of accused persons
to be heard is evidently dying away, or reducing itself to a fear lest criminals should be tortured by cross-examination. At the annual meeting of the Incorporated Law Society held at Bath, on Wednesday, opinion was unanimous in favour of examining the accused, and a resolution was passed to that effect, with the rider that " examination to credit " must be strictly limited,—that is, that a prisoner's whole previous history must not be brought up against him. The balance of opinion, moreover, seems to be in favour of examination by the Court, rather than by opposing counsel, the Court, it is thought, being more impartial. We feel disinclined to reawake in the Judge the old instinct of getting something out of a witness, and hardly see why, if examination to credit is restricted, and the prisoner left free to give or refuse a reply, be should not be questioned like any other prisoner. Indeed, we are not certain whether restrictions are not all wrong, and whether the simple object of a Court of Justice should not be to arrive at truth, so far as it is ascertain- able without torture.
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