OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 235 



respectability and trustworthiness in a community differently consti- 

 tuted, but wholly fails in a community like this, lacking honesty, but 

 abounding in property. In consequence of this qualification being 

 requisite, many honest and respectable persons in the community, very 

 proper to serve on juries, are excluded. 



" Within this range are included a class of persons in the colony 

 who have been transported hither for offences committed out of the 

 colony. They are qualified to act as jurymen under the Local Act, 

 without any proof being required that they had regained that good 

 repute which they once lost, and the mere circumstance of their having 

 served the period of their several sentences, does not establish that fact. 



" There are others who, possessing the qualifications in property, 

 have arrived in the colony as free emigrants, the near relatives of 

 transported persons, under such circumstances as justly to lead to the 

 suspicion of an undue bias existing in any case affecting them, and who 

 have connexions in England, not unlikely to follow them to the colo- 

 nies, possessing ready means of importing into this country property 

 dishonestly acquired, and who speedily accumulate wealth by that 

 and other dishonest means. There is no provision for guarding the 

 administration of justice against the predominance of such persons 

 upon the jury-list. The effect of the colonial law in practice has been, 

 that juries actually empannelled under it have been frequently formed 

 of very improper persons." 



From the data submitted with Judge Burton's report, he says, " It 

 appears that a party accused, inclined to exercise his right of peremp- 

 tory challenge, might insure a large predominance of convicted persons 

 on the jury, inasmuch as the law allows in cases of felony the 

 peremptory challenge of twenty in number, and if a prisoner has pro- 

 fessional assistance in his defence, this right of challenge is fully 

 exercised. In one instance I knew gentlemen of high character and 

 respectability thus peremptorily rejected on the part of the prisoner. I 

 took the liberty of asking some of them afterwards if the prisoner was 

 known to them, and was answered that he was not. The conclusion 

 in my own mind was, that they were challenged on account of their 

 respectability. In another case before me, every person of apparent 

 respectability who was called, was peremptorily challenged on the part 

 of the prisoner, which the crown officer observing, challenged all the 

 others, and the case remained over in default of jurors. In both cases 

 the accused had professional assistance. 



" Again, the jurors are placed alphabetically on the list, and are 

 summoned in that order ; the relatives of convicted persons, qualified, 

 and bearing the same name, are sure to be on the same panel with 



