From an exchange we learn with interest that the Japanese Government is planning a revision of the Civil Code, and that among the changes contemplated is the introduction of the jury system. To the Anglo-Saxon, who regards the jury system with more than usual pride as a thing of his own fashioning, the news is singularly gratifying, for, taken on the whole. the Anglo-Saxon jury _probably deals out as much justice as any other form of trial. There have been mistakes: quite as any as the system of trial by judge alone has committed. possibly even more. But when a number of nien sit in judgement, aided by the directions of a judge, their verdict is not so often wrong as to condemn the system. Trial by jury, as we understand it, entails the onus of proof resting upon the prosecution, the innocence of the defendant assumed until the offence is proved, and the duty for the jury of "passing between our sovereign lord, the King and the prisoner at' the Bar." Tt frequently imports that quality of humanity into the proceedings which enables the rendition of truer justice than the law often permits. and, on that score alone, has justified' its retention the Courts of Great Britain and America.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.