The Sun.
London, England, 1820-09-14 00:00:00

PROVINCIAL JOURNALS.

The Aekertizer, a Cork Journal, characterized
by loyalty, good sense, and decorum, contained
the following judicious citation on the 31st ult.

THEODORE MAJOCCI and Sir W. CUSACK SMITH, Bart.
The junction of these names, in the heading
of this article, may appear strange : and it will
be eagerly inquired what connection can there
be between them. Majocci, has been assailed by
all the Papers in the QUEEN'S interest as a per-
jurer and conspirator, because, on one of the
longest, most' able, and ingenious cross-examina-
tions to which a witness ever was subjected, he
did not give hi's answers with that self-possession
which, it is said, is ever attendant on truth.
Hear what Sir Wm. SmiTn; one of the Barons of
his Majesty's Exchequer; says on the subject of
cross-examinations—and by all Who know Sir
WILLIAM, it will be readily conceded, that. there
never sat on the -Bench a more upright and con-

stitutional Judge :
For the defaults of memory, says he, " nine
allowance should in every case be made. •
seems to be most, frail, and (if I may so call if
material of our mental faculties. It is the firs
to give way under the pressure of malady, or
caducity, of age. Whether we recollect or re-
member past
.events—whether we search for
them in that marvellous repository which lurks
withinus=or they come forth unsought. and of
their own accord, we feel as if there were some-
thing corporeal in the process. Let us beware then,
how we mistake, for a violation of moral truth, the
mere effects of some deficiency or-unsoundness of
this faculty—and condemn a man as perjured, who
is perhaps labouring under a degree of mental pa-
ralysis which, though not perceptible in the symp-
toms of tremor or indistinct articulation, may
have 'attacked- dick delicate and latent organs of
which memory makes use, and impaired a faculty
which it has not utterly destroyed. A state of
alarm, flutter, or abashment, is notoriously unfa-
vourable to the exertions of memory; while unfor-
tunately these emotions are most easily. excited in
those very cases where the faculty, already some-
what deranged, requires aid, instead of being ,sum.
moved to overcome anew obstruction.. But the mare
circumstances attending the situation (especially if
it be a novel one) in which a person called on to give
evidence in a crowded Court is placed, are suffi-
cient of themselves, and without supposing any
extraordinary excitation in the witness, to make
any impression on the nerves., not calculated to
assist the memory. Some of the scenes which a
Court of Justice occasionally present, half pro-
voke one to exclaim with Cicero, c Übit suet qui
aiant, =ides phones Y' When we see, as we some-
times do, confused or narrow intellect, irritable
temper, nervous timidity, and embarrassment,
send an honest witness off the table, over-
whelmed in inconsistency and - self contradic-
tion, while another, cooler and ' more col-
lected, retires after the perpetration of in-
trepid and consistent falsehood—we cast an eye
to the practice of our Courts of Equity, and sus-
pect that such matters are ordered better there.
My own temperament is not a nervous one, and
my forensic habits have, besides, tended to make
me, if not callous, at least firm.--Some time ago
I was, with these advantages, produced te give
evidence before an almost 'domestic tribunal,
where I was treated with kindness and respect,
and my testimony received with entire and
manifest 'reliance on its truth. lam aware that
nothing in my deportment was calculated to be-
tray trepidation,
.nor perhaps did my sensa-
tions amount to this ; yet, I felt conscious of
a-degree of latent einbarrassment and mal-wise,
which more or less interfered with the perspicuity
of a narrative, that (luckily for me and justice)
was neither complicated nor long. But suppose
the witness to be one whose nervous system is
disordered, Who appearS for the first time to give
evidence in a Court of Justice, and the subject
matter of whose evidence is in its nature tedious
and perplexed ; and let us reflect upon the ap-
pearances which may be likely to ensue," &c.
W. Smith's Tracts, London, 1-811.)

A cm:no-N.—L.on Saturday last Mr. CLIFTON
youngest son of Mr. BAKER, surgeon,
'Thames Ditto'', went out with his gun in com-
pany with another young Gentleman.. On step-
ping over a ditch he
.:.saw a snake; and on giving
it two blows with the butt-end of his gun a sprig
of the hedge is supposed to have• caught the trig-
ger ; the .-un, went off, and lodged the whole
charge.of shot in his left side. He was taken to
the nearest public-house, and every assistance
from the Medical Gentlemen round the neigh-
bou-rlfoOd 'afforded hizi, -but- he died late on the
same evening.