they directly charged Courvoisier with the crime. There is thus considerable ground for concluding that he was both terrorized and entrapped into a confession, and this before the reward was offered. He was told he had made a terrible mess of it, that an inmate of the house must have committed the crime, and that there was no doubt he would be brought to justice. Phillips, for the defense, directly insinuated that Courvoisier was the victim of a conspiracy among the policemen, anxious to divide the reward of £450 over his coffin. The summing up of TINDAL, C. J., renders it impossible to entirely reject this view. The Chief Justice directed the jury that the evidence of the policeman Baldwin was unworthy of credit; this witness originally adopted the view that a burglary had been committed, and the cross-examination of Phillips was directed to proving that he changed his view when the fact that a large reward had been offered came to his knowledge. It was dangerous, TINDAL, C. J., declared, in such a serious inquiry to give any weight to this man's evidence. . . .

Nearly a quarter of a century before this trial, that great reformer of the criminal law, Sir Samuel Romilly, animadverted, in the House of Commons, on the mischiefs arising from rewards given upon convictions. In 1692 an Act for encouraging the apprehension of highwaymen was passed, and by Sec. 2 a reward of £40 was offered “to him that shall take an highwayman." This Act was repealed in 1828. In 1756, MacDaniel, Berry, and Jones were indicted for the willful murder of Joshua Kidden, by maliciously causing him to be unjustly apprehended, falsely accused, tried, and convicted for highway robbery, well knowing him to be innocent of the fact laid to his charge, with an intent to share to themselves the reward. The fact was plainly proved against them upon this indictment, and the special matter being set forth in the indictment, the Court suffered them to be convicted and sentenced to death. . . . The baleful influence that the very large reward offered for the conviction of the murderer of Lord William Russell exercised over the whole of the police evidence at the trial of Courvoisier is doubtless the implicit historical explanation of the following passage in Best on "Evidence": "The English Government has for many years discontinued the offering rewards for the detection of crimes, on the ground that persons committed crimes for the purpose of obtaining the rewards by false accusations of the innocent; and the Home Office, though urgently requested to offer a reward for the discovery of a series of murders of women in Whitechapel in 1888, steadily refused to revive the practice on this ground."

215. RICHARD HARRIS. Hints on Advocacy. (1892. Amer. ed. pp. 91, 114.) The Police. As to the police in the witness box, I shall commence by saying, to counsel for an accused, As far as possible leave them alone. They are dangerous persons. They are professional witnesses, and in a sense that no other class of witnesses can be said to be. Their answers generally may be said to be stereotyped. All the ordinary questions have been answered scores of times by the well-disciplined, "active, and intelligent officer." Don't imagine, my young friend, that you are going to trip him up upon the path where his beat has been for many a year. He will perceive you coming while you are a long way off, and in all probability go out and meet you. Perhaps before you were born he answered the question you have just put....

But try him with something just a little out of the common line by way of experiment. You see he looks at you as though he had got the sun in his eyes. He cannot quite see what you are about. And you must keep him with the sun in his eyes if you desire to make anything of him. Without accusing him even by implication of having no reverence for the sanctity of an oath, I must say that if he sees the drift of your questions, the chances are against your getting the answers you want, or in the form in which you would like them. He thinks it his duty to baffle you, and if you do not get an answer you don't want, it will probably be because the policeman is as young and inexperienced as you are.

To be effective with the policeman your questions must be rapidly put. Although he has a trained mind for the witness box, it is trained in a very narrow groove; it moves as he himself moves, slowly and ponderously along its particular beat; it travels slowly because of its discipline, and is by no means able to keep pace with yours, or ought not to be. You should not permit him to trace the connection between one question and another when you desire that he should not do so. If you ask him whether it was a very dark night, and the darkness has nothing whatever to do with the issue, he will commence a process of reasoning (invented at Scotland Yard) as to your motive, and what might possibly be the effect of his answer. While this mental exertion is going on, interrupt him suddenly with a a question you have good reason for putting, and in all probability you will get something near the answer you require.

Policemen have a great deal of knowledge about the case, and a great deal of belief. The former you will find bad enough to deal with; but you must be careful not to elicit a large quantity of the latter: if you do, you may rest assured it will look so like fact that it will pass with the jury as such. You will be fortunate if it do not condense itself into fact by the time you get it.

Another matter there is to be on one's guard against, and that is, being overdone by police testimony. Very few policemen are really untruthful, I believe; and very few would unnecessarily "pile on the evidence" against a man. But all are zealous, and zeal is a force, as we all know, that will sometimes impel us beyond the boundary line of discretion. They require to be kept in with a steady and firm hand; for much zeal on their part, like too much anxiety on yours, is sure to operate against what the prosecution invariably calls "the interests of public justice."

The Private Detective. When the private inquiry man tells you that he made his inquiries by means of a gimlet and his eye, or that he saw behind the door through the keyhole; or distinguished voices that spoke whispers through brick walls, as if the object of the secret ones in this seclusion were to whisper expressly for the benefit of the inquiry man; he will have shown you enough to prove that he may be an anxious inquirer after truth, but not much of an artist in depicting it.

I always admire the wonderful boldness of these witnesses and their faith in human credulity. They seem to think they can make you believe that special miracles have been wrought for the purpose of carrying out their investigations.

The absolute positiveness with which this witness gives his evidence is a point in your favor; the impossibility of his having been mistaken is

another simply because the jury will not believe in the infallibility of a human being in carnal matters. And if the witness might have been mistaken, they will not believe him either. So that the circumstances under which the detective has made his discovery are matters worthy of your skill. With him suspicion is almost guilt, and almost every circumstance from his point of view is suspicious.

In a charge of arson against a shoemaker who had a small workshop in a village, this mode of proceeding by suspicion was demonstrated in a remarkable manner. The man's shop consisted of one room separated from other buildings. He worked there in the day, and left it locked up at night. His stock was worth about £50, and he had insured it for £70. A fire broke out at night after he had left, and burnt some of his stock, about £12 worth. Police came, but no suspicion rested upon him. He said he could not account for the fire; no one could have got in, as he had the key. A policeman, eager to convict somebody, finds this evidence:

1st. A policy of insurance, obtained on the day of the fire.

2d. A smell of paraffin all over the shop.

3d. Removal of a box to the prisoner's mother's on the day of the fire. 4th. Deaf man, who heard prisoner say, "I'm sorry you saw me move that box, as the police are making a fuss."

The explanation of these suspicious circumstances was this: The premium for insurance had been paid months before. The prisoner being at the insurance office on the day of the fire on other business, the manager said, You may as well have your policy."

The paraffin was burnt in lamps in the shop, and was used to clean the furniture had been used on that day for the purpose. The rag so used was lying on the drawers, hence the smell of paraffin.

There had been a fire in the grate on that day.

The box taken to the mother, belonged to her; she had asked for it, and it was proved to have been empty when taken.

The deaf man broke down in cross-examination, although he had come up to the mark in his examination by the clever policeman; and had been somewhat intimidated by the language of that functionary.

Mr. Justice Stephen in summing up made these observations:

"If you assume that this man committed the crime, then there are a good many circumstances that look suspicious; but if you do not assume that he is guilty, then the circumstances are not suspicious, as they are easily accounted for."

This appears to me to be the exact point with regard to many of the facts. that are discovered by the private inquiry man, as well as by your official detective. Once assume a person's guilt, and the most innocent circumstance will become invested with suspicion; many facts will be unconsciously exaggerated, first in the mind of the witness, and then in his evidence.

216. A. C. PLOWDEN. Grain or Chaff; The Autobiography of a Police Magistrate. (1903. p. 334.) One of the most difficult duties of a Magistrate is to judge fairly between conflicting statements not to incline too much to the constable merely because he is a constable, and not to be opposed to the prisoner merely because he is a prisoner.

A marked feature in a police constable - I might call it a useful defect

is his lack of imagination. The absence of this quality tends to keep down exaggeration, and has a particular value in the witness box. Truth cannot be expressed too simply. It is dangerous to attempt to embellish it. More than once I have known a prisoner to be "run in" who on his way to the station has anxiously inquired the name of the Magistrate before whom he will appear on the morrow, and then on being informed he will express his satisfaction or his contempt for "Old Plowden," with a free indulgence in the vernacular. The constable will repeat it all in the witness box with an absolutely unmoved countenance, without the trace of a smile or the exhibition of the slightest feeling. It is his duty to report faithfully what a prisoner may say. This is all that is present to his mind - his duty. What the prisoner may have said from any other point of view, or how he may have said it, concerns him not at all, and has no effect whatever on his imagination.

It follows that as a rule police constables make very reliable witnesses. Their memory, too, is generally excellent, and it is very seldom they give any sign of undue feeling or prejudice. I feel under endless obligations to them not only for their assistance as truthful and intelligent witnesses, but generally for their never failing courtesy and the alacrity which they bring to the discharge of any duty that may be required of them.

SUBTITLE G: EXPERIENCE

220. JOSIAH ROYCE. Outlines of Psychology. (1903. p. 221.) We have only to consider the origin of our perceptions in order to become convinced that what at present our sense organs show us with regard to the object, not only constitutes but a small portion of what we know or may know about the object, but also has acquired its whole present meaning for us through processes that, in the past, have been as complex as those of the grasping child, or perhaps much more complex than his have yet become. Our present conscious perception of any object which impresses our sense organs is a sort of brief abstract and epitome of our previous experience in connection with such objects. . . . The total result of all such experiences is epitomized in the present instantaneous perception of this object. . . . What we mean by the perception of an object is a cerebral process involving features of the foregoing kinds. The substance of the matter is that the present sense disturbance is at once associated with a consciousness due to already established motor habits, which have been trained in the presence of objects similar to the one now present. These habits may be of the most various kinds, and the consciousness excited by the object may have the most various relations to the habits themselves. They were slowly acquired, by means of acts that took a considerable time, and that were associated with the varied and complex consciousness. The perception is relatively instantaneous. It is a case of simultaneous association. The practical application of all this is obvious. If you are to train the powers of perception, you must train the conduct of the person who is to learn how to perceive. Nobody sees more than his activities have prepared him to see in the world. We can observe nothing to which we have not already

learned to respond. The training of perception is as much a practical training as is the learning of a trade. And it is this principle upon which the value of all arts, such as those of drawing, of experimenting, and of workmanship, depends, in so far as such arts are used, as in all modern training is constantly done for the sake of developing the power to perceive. It is because he has played music that the musician so well perceives music. It is because of his habits of workmanship that the skilled artisan or engineer can so well observe the things connected with his trade. It is because they do not know what to do that the untrained travelers in a foreign land often see so little, and find what they had hoped to be a wealth of new experience a dreary and profitless series of perplexities.

221. HANS GROSS. Criminal Investigation (transl. Adam, 1907, p. 149); and Criminal Psychology. (transl. Kallen, 1911, pp. 229, 239, 388). A. The Value of Experts. Experts are the most important auxiliaries of an Investigating Officer; in some way or other they nearly always are the main factor in deciding a case. But everything depends upon knowing how to make use of them. Indeed it is often less important to know who is to be questioned than to know how, upon what, and when questions must be put. But it is also an important thing for the Investigating Officer to know just whom he ought to apply to, i.e. what kind of expert he ought to select; moreover, he must know what the expert is capable of telling him in each case, that is to say, where his knowledge begins and what are the natural limits to it; and finally he must seize the proper moment for putting his question, i.e. the moment when he is in possession of sufficient material to render any further research superfluous.

As regards the limits of the expert's knowledge, the Investigating Officer must be particularly careful not to ask too much, for if he were to do so he might look ridiculous; on the other hand, if he does not ask enough, he may deprive himself of information of great value. A case is recalled in which the Investigating Officer sought to know whether the blood stain on a piece of cloth was that of a boy or of a girl; another Investigating Officer took a stove to pieces and sent it carefully packed to the chemical examiner with a request to know whether bank notes had been burned in it or not; and a colleague of the author recently met with a case in which it was asked whether the arsenic found in the corpse could be identified with that found in a sausage. On the other hand, every Investigating Officer knows of cases in which the solution of problems, seeming to outsiders almost insoluble, has been obtained; in this way experts in physics will discover, by a magnetic process, traces of iron, where chemical experts have found nothing; botanists once furnished the author with certain proof that some branches of hops had been cut with a particular knife. What can be performed with the assistance of electricity, the refinements of photography, radioactive rays, Roentgen rays and other acquisitions, is simply illimitable. . . .

It must not be forgotten that to-day, in spite of, and perhaps because of, the great progress of science, people make statements with much less assurance than formerly. One has only to compare books on medical jurisprudence written thirty years ago with those of to-day to see that the writers of those days, acting upon a small number of cases at their disposal, did not hesitate to state general principles, the correctness of which are now much