an to stand on a table. The infantile prodigy
who is put up on a table for the first time so as to be better admired
by fair visitors, and who has previously struggled manfully from one end
of the room to the other on the floor, totters and falls at the first
step when raised to this higher elevation. Anyone can with ease stand on
a chair and hang up a picture or anything of the sort, but standing on a
table has the effect of making you grow weak in the knees and light in
the head. This is not the effect of the extra height, but the knowledge
that the table was constructed so that you could put your feet under it,
and, therefore, they have no right on top of it.

Have you ever been in a court of justice in Ireland and seen a witness
perched upon a table? In that enlightened country a table takes the
place of the witness-box. The result is delightful. Standing in a
witness-box and leaning comfortably over the bar, you can be
comparatively at your ease, your legs can tremble unobserved, and you
seem to be in a measure protected from the searching gaze of the public.
Not so in the Emerald Isle. The chair is placed in the centre of the
table in the well of the court between the judges and the counsel, and
the unfortunate witness, finding himself in this elevated and awkward
position, becomes nervous in the extreme. His feet are a great source of
discomfort to him. He doesn't seem to know what to do with them. First
he tucks them under the chair, then he crosses them, then he turns his
toes out, then he turns them in, and just when he is beginning to get
accustomed to his embarrassing situation, the cross-examination begins,
and he is at the counsel's mercy:

"Now thin, don't be gaping at the jury, sir; why arrn't you respectful
and keep your eye on his lordship?"

"Now, sir, attind to me whin I'm speaking, look me straight in the face,
and answer me!"

"D'ye see this gintleman on me right? Now, now, don't hisitate, keep
cool!"

It is more than the poor witness can do to keep on the chair. The judge
is on his right, the counsel on the left, and the jury in front of him,
and after vainly trying to keep his eye on them all at the same time, in
obedience to his counsel's injunctions, he is requested by the opposing
counsel to observe some witness in the court behind him. In my opinion
the witness ought to be provided with a swivel chair, or else the clerks
who sit round ought to be adepts in the art of table-turning.

[I