Q. Now, after the sentence: “He asks for water only when he awakes from his somnolent condition,” which is the fourth stenographic line on the back of chart C-23, we notice that an entire line or half line has been erased. This half line had previously contained stenographic symbols but they are now no longer identifiable. Is that correct?
A. Yes. Something has been erased here.
Mr. Hardy: Your Honors can see the red erasure that has been used to erase that half line of characters; the impression of the eraser is still obvious there.
Q. Now, Professor, in the sentence in the next paragraph of stenographic notes, the second sentence reads: “The general condition gives no cause for alarm.” Is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, throughout your writing of these characters, between each word you usually leave a space to indicate another word, do you not? That is very clear throughout your transcription. You have left spaces between each character signifying words. Is that correct?
A. No. It varies. Sometimes the words are written closer together, quite closely, for example here (indicating).
Q. Well now, here in this sentence where it says, “The general condition gives no cause for alarm”, the word “no”—that is, this character here—does not have the spaces between it that all the other characters on the sheet have, does it? In fact, the symbol for “no” touches the previous symbol for “general condition”, leaving no spacing. Did you add the word “no” at a later date in a different pencil?
A. No. I do that quite frequently. When something is written above the line in shorthand I raise the adjoining sign as well.
Q. Now, if you will turn to the sentence in the third paragraph which reads: “Respiration somewhat flatter, moderately frequent”. The word “is” appeared instead of “somewhat” originally, did it not, before an erasure was made? Didn’t it read originally “Respiration is flatter, moderately frequent”?