The Abolition of the Jury System. 15 



we bring up in pit-falls at our feet. We can see jobbery in con- 

 gress, but we stumble heedlessly over it in our primary represen- 

 tative bodies. The original constitution of the jury in the great 

 centres of population is in low, bad hands. Judges have been 

 found with self respect enough to dismiss whole panels as unfit 

 and iinsafe for public service. The whole list often fills Home 

 Tooke's bill against a jury list in his day — "a basket of rotten, 

 oranges from which one has his choice." No rational account can 

 be given of some juries, but that they are of the criminal class,, 

 put in by the criminal class, for the benefit of the criminal class. 



Then comes the facility of tampering with juries through the- 

 sheriff's office. The reputation of that office is not immaculate,. 

 No office in the gift of the people lies so open to temptation from 

 rascality. It is a place of peculiar attraction to the " rough" ele- 

 ment. They furnish more candidates for this office than for any 

 other, and succeed usually in having some representative in it. 

 That element will serve itself and its own. A great outlay of 

 eflPort is not required. A shrug of the shoulder or a wink, and 

 there is a dead lock in the jury. 



Then society breaks its own center in the provision for sum- 

 moning talesmen. The men who are anxious to serve somebody- 

 are always on hand. The old jury soldier is a well known char- 

 acter. Whether he is one of the devil's poor or a poor devil, he 

 is equally open to the use of artful crime. 



Finally, add the technics of judicial procedure, especially as 

 they find expression in the ignorance and indifference, (qualifica- 

 tions in some states now abolished by express statute), by which 

 jurymen are secured who are too ignorant to know of crimes com- 

 mitted about them in society, and too callous, morally, to express 

 any opinion coucerniag them if they do, and there seems to be no 

 special reason why crime should not secure immunity and society 

 fail to be protected. The system, as we have it, is a standing 

 peril to society. 



If it be said that the service must be reformed, the reply is that 

 all attempts at reform will necessarily be partial, spasmodic. The 

 line is too long to guaid, and then it is not worth guarding. Soci- 

 ety has lost interest in the institution. The attitude of business 



