But the former have a task to perform as well, and any delicacy which they may exhibit in fulfilling it should be met by corresponding delicacy on the part of the counsel in the case.
It is much to be regretted that this is not invariably forthcoming, and that if the particular kind of cross-examination satirised in the person of Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz has, to some extent, gone out of fashion, something nearly, if not quite as bad, survives among our criminal lawyers.
In inquiries conducted before magistrates this license is painfully conspicuous.
It appears very often as if an ordinary bench of magistrates—we are not, of course, speaking of police magistrates—were frightened by the presence of a hectoring, genuine Old Bailey barrister.
It is absolutely monstrous that any of our fellow-citizens should be liable at any moment to be placed in the witness-box, and compelled, on pain of commitment, to answer the most insulting questions about his past career, and about all his relations and connections.
Judges themselves do not always interfere with sufficient promptitude to check these abuses of advocacy.
And magistrates, as we have already said, too often seem afraid to do so.
But there is one person, at all events, who might do something to check the practice, and that is the witness himself.
If it were found that witnesses made a practice of refusing to answer questions raking up their whole past lives, in order if possible to discredit their veracity and respectability, the system must inevitably collapse.
A general public protest against this iniquitous practice, represented by the frequent spectacle of witnesses being committed for contempt of court, would soon bring counsel to their senses.