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The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, July 12, 1864

POLICE COURT TESTIMONY

If there is anything more absurd than the general average of Police Court testimony, we do not know what it is. Witnesses stand up here, every day, and swear to the most extravagant propositions with an easy indifference to consequences in the next world that is altogether refreshing. Yesterday - under oath - a witness said that while he was holding the prisoner at the bar so that he could not break loose, the prisoner "pushed my wife with his hand - so - tried to push her over and kill her!" There was no evidence to show that the prisoner had anything against the woman, or was bothering himself about anything but his scuffle with her husband. Yet the witness surmised that he had the purpose hidden away in his mind somewhere to take her life, and he stood right up to the rack and swore to it; and swore also that he tried to turn this noble Dutchwoman into a corpse, by the simple act of pushing her over. That same woman might be pushed over the Yo Semite Falls without being killed by it, although it stands to reason that if she struck fair and bounced, it would probably shake her up some.

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