"What is your profession, trade, occupation, or calling?"
"My profession," said the witness, "is one of which all sensible men might be proud. I am a phrenologist. I tell the diversified mental and moral characteristics of men, women, and children, whether they be white or whether they be black, by a manipulatory examination of the superficial, distinctive developments of their respective craniums, vulgarly denominated skulls."
"Have you, or have you not, made, very recently, a critical examination of the cranium of the prisoner at the bar?"
"I answer, most unequivocally, I have."
"Can you inform the jury what are the respective developments of the prisoner's organs of alimentiveness, acquisitiveness, and conscientiousness?"
Here the opposite counsel rose and objected to the question; saying that the introduction of such testimony was wholly unwarranted by any of the established rules of evidence.
After an argument of some length, the court decided that the testimony in relation to the phrenological developments of Sam was inadmissible. Thereupon Professor Boneskull retired from the stand, carrying both heads with him as he went.
"Mr. Pate, have you any further testimony to offer?" inquired the court.
"None whatever," was the mournful response.