the detectives may spend weeks in discovering when and where
it was purchased. Every pawnshop, every store where a pistol
could be bought, is investigated, and under proper
circumstances the requisite evidence to show deliberation and
premeditation may be secured.

These investigations are naturally conducted at the very
outset of the preparation of the case.

The weapon, in seven trials out of ten, is the most important
thing in it. By its means it can generally be demonstrated
whether the shooting was accidental or intentional--and
whether or not the killing was in self-defence.

Where this last plea is interposed it is usually made at once
upon the arrest, the accused explaining to the police that he
fired only to save his own life. In such a situation, where
the killing is admitted, practically the entire preparation
will centre upon the most minute tests to determine whether or
not the shot was fired as the accused claims that it was. The
writer can recall at least a dozen cases in his own experience
where the story of the defendant, that the revolver was
discharged in a hand-to-hand struggle, was conclusively
disproved by experimenting with the weapon before the trial.
There was one homicide in which a bullet perforated a felt cap
and penetrated the forehead of the deceased. The defendant
asserted that he was within three feet of his victim when he
fired, and that the other was about to strike him with a
bludgeon. A quantity of felt, of weight similar to that of
the cap, was procured and the revolver discharged at it from