The oath in all our Courts, says New Zealand Times, ia more filfora blasphem ous burlesque representation than for the serious administration of justice. One performer gabbles flippantly through a form of words, the other looks at any-, thing he pleases the while, his boots, the top of the Judge's wig, at the sky through the skylight, or (probably with a winki at any friend he may see in the Court until the gabble is done, and then he kisses a filthy greasy book, doing it in a desperate hurry and with a wry face. '1 he curious result of the degrading scene is that of those two performers that one who has not pronounced the oath is the one who is supposed to have taken it, and the performer who has pronounced it is not supposed to hare taken it. Imagine a law compelling doctors^ to study the effect of medicines upon their patients by taking their own prescriptions, and making their patients kiss the bottles and pill boxes. That would not be one

bit more absurd than the burlesque upon the oath which disgraces our Courts of

Justice. If every witness had.the moral courage displayed by Dr Teare the other day in the Supreme Court, that burlesque would disappear. The Act of 1894 compels every Court in tbe land of every description, regular and irregular, to obey the demand of every witness who insists on being sworn with becoming, reverence according to a prescribed form.' \ here is no discretion of the Court in the matter; The witness " shall be entitled if he so wishes to have an oath adminis tered to him in the form following; that | is to say, the officer, or person tendering the oath, holds up his hand and says to the witness,' Witness hold up your hand and repeat after me: "I swear by Al mighty God, as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgment, that I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' That is a reveren tial and proper form of oath, and the procedure is exactly what it ought to be, underthe;serious circumstances surround ing every case. It is in remarkable con trast to the present perfunctory method of degrading a solemn duty to worse than the level of nothing. 