Institutio Oratoria

It has been found advantageous at times when confronted with an honest and respectable witness to refrain from pressing him hard, since it is often the case that those who would have defended themselves manfully against attack are mollified by courtesy. But every question is either concerned with the case itself or with something outside the case. As regards the first type of question counsel for the

defence may, by adopting a method which I have already recommended for the prosecutor, [*](Alive, § 17, 18.) namely by commencing his examination with questions of an apparently irrelevant and innocent character and then by comparing previous with subsequent replies, frequently lead witnesses into such a position that it becomes possible to extort useful admissions from them against their will.