“ Technical Trials .” 
348 
[June, 
entirely absent under the existing system. It is not for me 
to take up the published reports of any celebrated trial, and 
say that such or such an opinion given by Dr. B. in the 
witness box was more or less dictated by private ill-will to 
Professor A., who had been called by the opposite side. Yet 
at the time of some of the great poisoning trials there pre- 
vailed an uneasy suspicion, both in medical and legal circles, 
that some of the evidence given had been at least coloured 
by this unworthy feeling. But, under the proposed system, 
there would be, as it seems to me, three channels through 
which professional jealousy might make itself manifest. 
Experts between whom there is “ no love lost might still, 
as now, be called to give evidence by the opposite sides. 
Or, again, suppose a trial where the issue is the pollution or 
the non-pollution of a certain well. In the witness box 
stands Professor X., who states that he has analysed the 
water by his own method, which he maintains is the only 
trustworthy process known, and that he has found such and 
such results. In the jury box sits his rival Professor Y., who 
declares that the method used is utterly worthless, the 
amount to be determined being smaller than the limit of 
error, and that a certain other process ought to have been 
employed. Should we not then have the jury cioss- 
examining such a witness in a more offensive and imputa- 
tive manner than is now done by counsel ? In the third 
place let us suppose our two rival professors both on the 
jury, scarcely to be kept within the bounds of public decorum, 
whilst counsel seek to foment the quarrel. Let us imagine 
the scene afterwards, when the jury retire ! In all proba- 
bility they would be discharged as unable to come to any 
decision, and a new trial would become necessary. 
There are, however, cases where a jury of experts, in a 
form perfectly practicable as the law now stands, would be 
extremely useful. I will take the following instance, no 
mere apologue or parable, but, save for the suppression of 
the names of persons and places, an actual faCt : — Messrs. 
C., dyers, sued Messrs. E., another firm of dyers whose 
works were situate higher up on the same stream, for injury 
done to their trade by the pollution of the water with waste 
dye-liquors, &c. The case was tried in London, and there 
was an immense outlay incurred in bringing up witnesses, 
analysing samples of the water above and below the point 
where the pollution was said to have originated, and the 
final result was a compromise. Now, if the case could have 
been tried on the spot before a jury of dyers, who could first 
have inspected the stream and then adjourned to the dye- 
