seven years in State's prison.

To recapitulate, the quickness and positiveness of women make
them ordinarily better witnesses than men; they are vastly
more difficult to cross-examine; their sex protects them from
many of the most effective weapons of the lawyer, with the
result that they are the more ready to yield to prevarication;
and, even where the possibility of complete and unrestricted
cross-examination is afforded, their tendency to inaccurately
inferential reasoning, and their elusiveness in dodging from
one conclusion to another, render the opportunity of little
value.

In general, however, women's testimony differs little in
quality from that of men, all testimony being subject to the
same three great limitations irrespective of the sex of the
witness, and the conclusions set forth above are merely the
result of an effort on the part of the writer to comment
somewhat upon those small differences which, under close
scrutiny, may fairly be said to exist. These differences
are quite as noticeable at the breakfast-table as in the
court-room; and are no more patent to the advocate than to the
ordinary male animal whose forehead habitually reddens when he
hears the unanswerable reason which, in default of all others,
explains and glorifies the mental action of his wife, sister
or mother: "Just because!"


AS COMPLAINANTS AND DEFENDANTS