10» Wisconsin Academy of /Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



Trial by jury may be a palladium of British liberty, but Brit- 

 ain has had wit enough not to trust her invaluable marine inter- 

 ests to landlubber juries. It is readily apparent why this excep- 

 tion is made. The ordinary citizen cannot pass understandingly 

 upon matters so technical and peculiar as maritime business in- 

 volves. 



But then, is it not apparent that all business is rapidly tending 

 to infold the same difficulty ? Can marine affairs present any 

 greater difficulties to an ordinary j ury than arise out of the in- 

 dustries we are now plying on land? If it is undesirable to have 

 juries pass upon shipping interests, how comes it desirable to 

 have them pass upon cases which spring out of railway business, 

 out of manufacturing, patents, telegraphy, banking? 



Is not commerce by land becoming as technical and peculiar as 

 commerce by sea? 



If there were no objections to the character of juries as ordi- 

 narily raised, yet the tendency of all business to what Herbert 

 Spencer would call greater " heterogeneity," is reason enough for 

 the abolition of the jury system in all civil cases. 



The lot cannot any longer be expected to select a man for a 

 juror who can in any wise be of any assistance to a court or to 

 parties litigant. Originally the jury was called not only to aid 

 the court with information which they possessed, instead of being 

 instructed by the court, as now, by the impartation of both fact 

 and law, but for generations it was only upon one kind of matter 

 •of dispute that the aid of a jury was sought. 



Questions respecting titles to land called into existence the in- 

 stitution of the jury. The expression, " a jury of the vicinage," 

 preserves to us a reminiscence of the day when the sole business 

 of a jury was to give the court information in respect to posses- 

 sion and reputed title to land in their vicinage. 



In the commotions consequent upon the ISTorman conquest, 

 questions of this kind were frequent. 



Titles rested not in record but in possession. Twelve men 

 from the vicinage could tell the court who had been in pos- 

 session of a certain piece of land, or along what line of de- 

 ^ce nt it was reputed among them that possession came. That 



