To the Editor of the "Norr-Cutxa Dany News"
'Sim—In a Jeaderette on the 30th ult, re the Casserley case, you said, Inter alia, that one of these days an alteration' will undoubtedly be made in the system of trial by jury, and you went on to describe how the [judges do their utmost to direct the jury towards a course of a proper thinking in order to arrive at a fair Jand just verdict though they, the judges, cannot do everything possible to ensure a dispassionate judgment in which they are so well qualified, ete, ete.
That on improvement is wanting in this respect is quite obvious, and its fadvent- warrants no further delay, or remain in the offing. Under present procedure. the findings of juries very much depend upon the summing up fof the presiding judge which, humanly, could be prejudiced, a possibility' which should be guarded against in the interest of justice and equity.
Trial by jury is not the creation of Jmodern thought. It has its background in remote biblical records, In the Pentateuch we are told how murder and other criminal eases, clusive of important civil ones, were tried and decided by the elders of the community. Elders, in this sense, does not signify aged and hoary people. They were men of import-Jance and sagacity: men well versed in the law and common sense, men. fof integrity who could be relied upon for sound judgments and. fairplay. Such men required no telling by a presiding judge how to receive a case and how to decide it. They did so fon the strength of their own intellect fond ability of understanding. is such men of a jury that we ced now as ever, and these could only be obtained from amongst. the students of the Jaw, viz, judge magistrates and lawyers, who should bbe made to attend to eases in courts, jas juryman, In towns and counties where superabundance of the law-faculty is not available, members of the community could be called to fill in the gap, but these should always be in the minority, and, in all respects, the foreman should be chosen from the law circle. Such an forder could be established and befeome law by an act of parliament Business men, however fair minded and aboveboard they may be, are not conversant with the intricacies: of the Jaw, and are not, therefore, expected to be able to decide cases from points of Taw. without the prompting of the judges, a procedure not, to my thinking, in consonance with the ideals of justice, It requires the British Press (o take the matter up and make a start, and we may, perhaps, in the course of a few years, see this an accomplished fact. Would not the "N.C.D.N." make that start, and do it right now?
Shanghai, June 7.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.