"
_Judge_, interposing with a weary air: "_Who_ is David Williams?"
_Counsel_: "Well--er--a member of the Bar--well known in the
criminal courts--Shillito case--"
_Judge_: "Really? I had not heard of him. Proceed."
_Counsel_ (to Vivie): "You heard my questions?"
_Vivie_: "I have never posed as being other than what I am, a woman
much interested in claiming the Parliamentary Franchise for Women;
and I do not see what these questions have to do with my indictment,
which is a charge of arson. You introduce all manner of irrelevant
matter--"
_Counsel_: "You decline to answer my questions?"
(Vivie turns her head away.)
_Judge_, to Counsel: "I do not quite see the bearing of your
enquiries."
_Counsel_: "Why, Me Lud, it is common talk that prisoner is the
well-known barrister, David Vavasour Williams; that in this disguise
and as a pretended man she passed the necessary examinations and was
called to the Bar, and--"
_Judge_: "But what bearing has this on the present charge, which is
one of Arson?"
_Counsel_: "I was endeavouring by my examination to show that the
prisoner has often and successfully passed as a man, and that the
evidence of witnesses who affirmed that they only saw _a young man_
at or near the scene of these incendiary fires, that a young man,
supposed to have set the stables alight, once dashed in and rescued
two horses which had been overlooked, might well have been the
prisoner who is alleged to have committed most of these crimes in
man's apparel--"
_Judge_: "I see.
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