The Jury System

Dr. Holland, in the September icribner, gives his opinión of the jury system - an opinión the opposite of complementary. Atuong other thinga he says : " Of all the hallucinations whicb, from generation to generation, possess and pervert the luitids of men, that which attaches a fort of sacredness to a jury trial, and holds the jury system as half divine, is the most fatuitous. To come down to solid fact, let us confess that the ordinary jury is ötterly incompetent to perform the duties of its office. Men who are taken from the different walks of lift), men whose ininds run in the narrow channels of specialized industries, are brought into a oourt-room under circumstances utterly strange to them, without habits of mental application, without practise in sifting evidence, easily imposed upon by the plausibilities of counsel, easily acted upon through their sympathies, easily impre8Sed by eloquence, and are expected the first time, and every time, to render justice. The thing is absurd on the face of it; and so nontorious now is the uncertainty of a jury trial, that men regard a verdict very iuucli as they do the drawing of a lottery. A verdict is tt matter of jury and not of justice at all. We should very ïnuch prever to leave a case of ours with three men trained in the law, or to one man accustomed to coinparing and measuriug evidence, than to twelve men selected by lot from the realm of inexperienee and incompetency. After one has picked out the three best men on a jury, he has a better jury in the three than in the nine whioh are left. A sum is not increased by piling ciphers upon it. The simple truth is that the jury system is ontlived and ought to be outlawed. It does not help the cause of law and justioe and ought to be kicked out of the way. It is oppressive to the juror, it is anomalous in our system of government, it makes the uncertainty of the law still more uncertain, it is expensive, and it is utterly unneoessary. There is nothing sacred atiout it. To be tried by a man's peers is not half so good a thing as to be tried by a man's intellectual and moral superiors." A Germán living in Evansville, Ind., claims to have invented a motor which will prove a successf ui rival to Keeley's. His experiment will be first made on the street cars, which he says may be propelled with only such machinery as can be concealed under the Hoor ; and the attention of one man will be needed to keep each car in motion. Like Keeley, he keeps the peouliar charaoter of bis inveution a profound secret. A Demooratio procession at Eaymond, Miss., a few days ago, was joinud by three hundred colored citizens.