314 DUBOIS— OBSERVATIONS ON THE [April 23. 



consciously balancing itself to a nicety of honesty and absolute 

 justice. It becomes evidence. 



It is questionable whether the cause of justice would not be 

 better served by a much more liberal attitude toward the admission 

 of evidence than our jurisprudence usually allows. 



This particular case is also a good illustration of jury-irritation 

 through excess of detail and repetition. Large photographs were 

 displayed and re-displayed and pencil-marked and passed and re- 

 passed among the jury to show the pavement and the curbstone. All 

 witnesses but one corroborated what the photographs were supposed 

 to picture and no juror or any one else probably had any doubt about 

 the pavement or about the slipping of the woman's foot. But it 

 would have been just as effective to show the photographs once and 

 for all, and obtain a simple statement of fewer witnesses without 

 such over-elaboration. 



There was a juror, for instance, who was suffering from a rack- 

 ing cough, who lived on a small branch railroad at perhaps fifty 

 miles distance. He had left many business interests. It was now 

 the last day of the term — Saturday. If he lost a certain afternoon 

 train he would lose a whole day in getting home. He knew that 

 a team had been sent for him a dozen miles or so through a snow- 

 drifted country and if he could not catch that train his non-arrival 

 would not be understood. Naturally he looked repeatedly at his 

 watch when every senseless repetition delayed the trial. The judge 

 did his part to push the trial through but there is a limit to the 

 judge's action at least as a matter of expediency. The juror with 

 dismay saw his train-time go by with suppressed irritation. One 

 or two others from other counties were similarly aft'ected. The in- 

 sistence here is that the trial could have been gone through within 

 half or two thirds of the time it really took. The jury knew no more 

 for the redundancy and were less fit for the balance of their 

 powers than they would be under more favorable conditions. Few 

 men can be at their best as dispensers of justice when they see their 

 valuable time frittered away — for what? To settle a contention in 

 which they have no live interest and for which they are held in 

 duress as though they were not to be trusted out of sight. 



Mr. Coates's experience agrees with mine — that the pleadings 



