On these facts, the learned trial judge convicted the appellant of murder and sentenced him to death. He has now appealed to the Court against that conviction and the only ground of appeal argued on his behalf reads:"That the learned trial judge erred in law in failing to make a preliminary inquiry as to the competence of the 2nd prosecution witness to give evidence on oath and thereby came to a wrong decision. " Â Â Learned counsel for the appellant argued that the learned trial judge should have complied with the provisions of section 182 of the Evidence Act by making and recording a preliminary inquiry and that his failure to do so vitiates the evidence of the 2nd prosecution witness, Agnes Okoye, and that since that was the only evidence against the appellant there should have been a direction to the effect that there was no evidence or no sufficient evidence to sustain the charge. On the other hand, learned State Counsel for the respondent argued that there was no duty on the learned trial judge to hold a preliminary inquiry before allowing the witness to give evidence since, as State Counsel submitted, section 182 of the Evidence Act does not so prescribe; that the provisions of section 149(1) of the Evidence Act apply and that in any case this is a proper case and occasion to apply the provisions of the proviso to section 26(1) of the Supreme Court Act. It was also urged in argument by learned counsel for the appellant that by virtue of the provision of section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which states that a "child" means any person who has not attained the age of 14 years, the girl Agnes Okoye was a child within the meaning of section 182 of the Evidence Act. We entertain some doubt as to whether or not the definition of child in the Criminal Procedure Act does necessarily carry the same connotation in the context of section 182 of the Evidence Act, but the point is immaterial to our present decision since it must be generally accepted that a boy or girl of the age of 13 years must be considered a child. There are on the statute books a large number of statutes concerning children and many of them, if not most, do carry relevant definitions of the word "child" or cognate expressions like "children", "childish" or indeed "young persons" and in these circumstances except there be a general definition provided by a statute of interpretation, it might be imprudent to lay down any hard and fast rule. As Willes J. observed in Reg. v. Cockerton [1901] 1 K.B. 322 at pages 340-341, when dealing with the provisions of the Elementary Education Act, 1870:"Except for the purposes of one Act, dealing with compulsory attendance, no definition has been given of a 'child'. It is impossible to lay down any definite boundary as separating 'children' from 'young men' or 'young women', or any other description by which an advance beyond childhood may be indicated. Practically I suppose that at somewhere between sixteen and seventeen at the highest an age has been arrived at which no one would ordinarily call childhood."