-10-
"before the jury without the evidence being thereby
"rendered unintelligible... Such prior acts formed
"in point of history and circumstantial connection,
"inseparable parts of the transaction which the jury
"had to investigate....... The relations of the
"murdered man
to his assailant, so far as they
"ay reasonably be treated as explanatory of the
conduct
41
*mockickom of the accused as charged in the indictment.
"are properly admitted to proof as integral parts of "the history of the alleged crime for which the
"accused is on his trial."
I should like to have suggested to the learned judge
in this connection that the use of the word "unintelligible"
here narrows the field too rigidly and that the word
*incomplete" might take its place. The prosecution has a right to tell "the whole story of the prisoner's doings”
(Russell" Crimes" 7th &dn. p.2101) or everything that may
be fairly considered an incident of the event " (Taylor
"vilence" 11 Eda. par. 583).
I have found a striking illustration in the prologue of
modern play
-
John Van Druten's "Somebody Knows" - where
a character in discussion -ith mxk novelist is made to
say "It's like one of those novels, I don't mean the kind
"He ome in, you write but the sort where the author says
closed the door and faced her" and that's the end of the
chapter and the next one begins "Ten days later.....".
I always want to say But you're cheating. You've got to
tell us what happened".
The demarcation of any transaction by the judge is
perhaps a point on which liɛtle help may be derived from precedent. To quote & dictum ofarly Lereburn in Kerr
or Lendrum v. Ayr Stem hipping Company Limited" 1915,
A.C. at p.223, the learned judge there remarked "For an I