, perhaps unfortunately, on the principle that testimony not
apparently deduced by the syllogistic method from the observation of
relevant fact is valueless, and hence woman at the very outset is
placed at a disadvantage and her usefulness as a probative force sadly
crippled.

The good old lady who takes the witness-chair and swears that she knows
the prisoner took her purse has perhaps quite as good a basis for her
opinion and her testimony (even though she cannot give a single reason
for her belief and becomes hopelessly confused on cross-examination) as
the man who reaches the same conclusion ostensibly by virtue of having
seen the defendant near by, observed his hand reaching for the purse,
and then perceived him take to his heels. She has never been taught to
reason and has really never found it necessary, having wandered through
life by inference or, more frankly, by guesswork, until she is no
longer able to point out the simplest stages of her most ordinary mental
processes.

As the reader is already aware, the value of all honestly given
testimony depends first upon the witness's original capacity to observe
the facts; second upon his ability to remember what he has seen and not
to confuse knowledge with imagination, belief or custom, and lastly,
upon his power to express what he has, in fact, seen and remembers.

Women do not differ from men in their original capacity to observe,
which is a quality developed by the training and environment of the
individual. It is in the second class of the witness's limitations that
women as a whole are more likely to trip than men, for they are prone to
swear to circumstances as facts, of their own knowledge, simply because
they confuse what they have really observed with what they believe
did occur or should have occurred, or with what they are convinced did
happen simply because it was accustomed to happen in the past.

Perhaps the best illustration of the female habit of swearing that facts
occurred because they usually occurred, was exhibited in the
Twitchell murder trial in Philadelphia, cited in Wellman's "Art of
Cross-Examination." The defendant had killed his wife with a blackjack,
and having dragged her body into the back yard, carefully unbolted the
gate leading to the adjacent alley and, retiring to the house, went to
bed. His purpose was to create the impression that she had been murdered
by some one from outside the premises. To carry out the suggestion, he
b