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 bent a poker and left it lying
near the body smeared with blood. In the morning the servant
girl found her mistress and ran shrieking into the street.