Important Advance in English Judicial History The summoning of the first women to*serve on the juries at the Central Criminal Court in London is an event of considerable importance in England's judicial history, and it seemed appropriate that the man before whom they made their first appearance to answer to their names or to offer pleas for exemption should have been the son of Charles Dickens.
was noteworthy also says the Manchester "Guardian," that while only one woman served on the jury in the Court of the Common Ser-leant (Mr. H. F. Dickens, x.c-), that woman was selected to act as foreman. It would have been a trying position for most women, but Mrs. Taylor Bumpstead has been in public life for many years and understood the procedure. Several of the women jurors looked as if they had had a long experience of public affairs. One of them was the head mistress ofa school, quite content to give up part of her holiday to this civic duty.
Both at the Old Bailey and at the London Sessions, however, the jurywoman seemed to have drawn from all classes, and they varied widely in age. Some of them were evidently very nervous; they could not conceal that fact though they tried to overcome it, and they followed the evidence closely.
One of the more experienced women before going into court said that she did not expect to like the work, but she thought it was very necessary that women should take their share in public life and in all civic duties- She believed, too, that the presence of women on juries would result in greater care being taken in cases where women were concerned. Some eases would obviously be very unpleasant, but men had not shirked their duties because of unpleasant-mess and women must equally show a public spirit.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.