In anticipation of this testimony, Pate had carefully prepared his argument at home and had committed it to memory.
He now succeeded in carrying his point, the court deciding that, upon general principles, there was nothing to preclude the prisoner's counsel from proving, if he could so do, that Rump's brain was in such a disordered condition as to render his testimony unreliable. So the question was put to Rump, who said that he had walked at all hours of the night, and had never seen a psychological illusion; that he had never "heard tell of them" before, and did not know what they were. After much badgering, however, he admitted that he had seen something behind his barn, which, to the best of his knowledge and belief, was a ghost. Having been worried until he had made this admission, poor Rump was finally dismissed from the stand.
The testimony of the State was here closed.
The court now inquired of Mr. Pate if he had any witnesses to examine on the part of the defense.
"Yes, may it please your Honor," was the reply, "we have one very important witness. Call Professor Joseph Boneskull."
Thereupon the crier called, in a loud voice, "Professor Joseph Boneskull! Professor Joseph Boneskull!"
Immediately a bald-headed little man, about five feet two inches in stature, walked up to the witness-stand, carrying in his hand a phrenological plaster cast of a human head. All eyes opened in amazement and looked with wonder, first at the head on the little man's shoulders, and then at the head in his hand.
This strange witness, who seemed to come on the stand under the impression that two heads were better than one, was sworn by the clerk in the usual form, when Mr. Pate asked,--
"What is your profession, trade, occupation, or calling?"
"My profession," said the witness, "is one of which all sensible men might be proud. I am a phrenologist. I tell the diversified mental and moral characteristics of men, women, and children, whether they be white or whether they be black, by a manipulatory examination of the superficial, distinctive developments of their respective craniums, vulgarly denominated skulls."
"Have you, or have you not, made, very recently, a critical examination of the cranium of the prisoner at the bar?"
