Waarever be the cause, there seems a disposition in many quarters to more or less interfere with the system of trial by Jury in England. The almost sacred prestige which hangs about the declared unanimous opinion of twelve men, seems doomed sooner or later to depart, and the old fashioned jury to become athing of the past. There are doubtless some reasons why the cumbrousness of the present system should be improved, and it is undeniably the case that juries do occasionally stultify themselves; yet juries have more than one use. It is noticeable that the outery against them proceeds from a particular section of the legal profession, and it is perhaps only natural that men brought up ina narrow circle of legal practice should be somewhat jealous of the wider notions which occasionally escape from the jury empannelled to try a point at issue, The lo profession seems becoming m markedly distinct from the rest of world, more professional in point fact; and, as such, is more apt to quar with those who have no peculiar aff tion for the often insignificant poi which seem all and all in the juri: eyes. While juries have for mo centuries been looked upon as 1 guardians of public liberty, there another aspect in which they can viewed, and in which they have ae a scarcely less distinguished po While an Englishman has always justly proud of the proviso that could not be punished except wh found guilty by an impartial jury his fellows, the fact that at any time was liable to be called on to judge issues of truth and falsehood was that has had an appreciable effect the national character. The functi of listening to evidence, and of termi conclusions from facts laid before hi has been a training which has hel to render the English mind more stal than that of most other nations. 4 customed to reason from establish facts, wild generalisms have never h the influence in England that th have had elsewhere. The habit ij pressed on him asa matter of clu that he shall know and consider nothi: except what is brought before him, b acted as a wholesome check against t assumption of " first principles" whi have been at the bottom.of revolutions since the world began; wh the same principle has reacted on t legal profession, and taught them ti necessity of close and careful argue to the exclusion of mere forensic art.
Some writers, more ingenious th: accurate, have sought in the case of Tichborne Claimant to make o more or less of a case against june 'The British public,' we are informed, credulity itself. We are disposi to look upon the result in a ye different light. That there many more dupes than we shou have liked to see, was unquestio able; and that an attempt was mad and was partially successful, to ga sympathy by unworthy means, also too palpably the case. There wa however, something more importa in the manner in which this freedom: of opinion was allowed to display itsd than has been as yet noticed. TI great body of the English people, firm believing that the truth of the ca would eventually come out, were ver well content to allow the Courts of la) to proceed without adding still more the excitement by declaring their ow opinion. The silence with which th great body of the people regarde the doings of the more loud-tongue advocates for the Claimant, simply a mute expression of thei confidence that, come what work justice would be done. For the sam reason, comment on the verdict of a jur is an unusual thing. Every man wh as sat knows how different occasion
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.