dges consider it a matter of course. If the judge after all the
argument finally decides to let the testimony as to the red cow stand,
he will not be inclined to change his mind because the lawyer
interjects that threatening exception. The sound of the word is
spiteful and seems to express the resentment of the lawyer at the
ruling of the judge.

No example could be found in the thousand volumes of law reports where
the judge changes his mind on account of an exception. The object in
this particular direction is vain.

With regard to appeal; the Appellate Court that attempts to decide a
case on the exceptions taken at the trial would have a difficult time.
They would have to disentangle the mesh of evidence and find out
whether that important piece of testimony on page 204 was excepted to
or not, then whether there was a proper ruling; refer to the
stenographer's minutes and look at the important exception on page 59
and again on page 106. Unless the question decided was excepted to,
the Appellate Court can not decide it. It is hard to imagine that any
court could be so rigorous and narrow-minded that they could hang
justice on such little pegs of exceptions, which the stenographer in
the hurry of the moment may have forgotten to insert.

In the criminal courts there are no exceptions on the part of the
people, because there are no appeals on behalf of the State. The
defendant continues to repeat "I respectfully except." "I must insist
on my exception." Think of a man being jailed for seventeen years
because his case was not reversed on account of the failure to except.
The court could not believe Justice to be so blind-folded that she can
not understand the evidence as a whole.

Exceptions are the tacks and pin pricks of a trial. They are of so
little value in the main structure of the drama that if they are
forgotten by either side, the court should provide them with a bushel
basketful which could be distributed by the handful wherever the
lawyers thought they would be useful or pleasant.

Objections are of three main kinds: irrelevant, immaterial, and
incompetent. They are like the magic words that open or unlock the
doors of evidence and let it in or keep it out. They have three
distinct meanings which lawyers understand. A thing may be immaterial,
but not incompetent, or incompetent and not immaterial, or irrelevant
and not immaterial, or irrelevant and not incompetent, or incompetent
and not irrelevant, or o