Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/304

290 verdicts to which the judgments of Sancho Panza were, in comparison, as the judgments of Solomon; and when we learn that for all this the country pays their traveling expenses, their hotel bills, and so much per diem for their services—we can not but believe that the day is not far distant when the jury system, with all its glories and eccentricities, will be a thing of the past. It is rude, clumsy, and out of harmony with the progress of the world. It smacks of a former age and a cruder civilization. It reminds one of the clod of earth, and the lictor's rod; the trial by ordeal, and benefit of clergy. It belongs to these, and not to the age in which we live. With these it arose, and to these it will in time be gathered. The question is, Has not that time arrived now? Is not the world capable of a more perfect system to-day; and if so, what?

No system that can be suggested as superior to the jury can be positively shown in advance to be so. There are so many factors of uncertain quantity which enter into the calculation, that nothing like a perfect estimate of the respective merits of any two systems is possible. By what rule of mathematics can we arrive at the respective wisdom and sagacity of a jury of twelve men as compared with a bench of one, two, or three judges, or their respective honesty, impartiality, and so on? But more, perhaps, in the way of exact calculation is possible than has yet been accomplished. Something is possible, at least, by way of an exact estimate of the relative expense of any two systems. That is one item. Then, something may be done, though perhaps not much, by way of a comparison of the results of a certain term or terms of court in a certain district, where the jury system prevails, with those of a corresponding term or terms in a district where a judge alone decides the questions at issue. In the item of expense must be reckoned the loss to the country by reason of so many persons being taken from their natural employments, the temptations into which they are thrown, and the demoralizing influences to which they are subject. But these calculations pertain more to a commission of inquiry, and I do not propose to enter into them. Neither do I propose to enter, even theoretically, into the great question whether society would not be the gainer in point of morality by an administration of the criminal laws in which a jury would have no part, but merely, by way of introduction to these questions, take a brief glance at what the jury system really is.

It will be admitted, I think, that the jury of real life does not correspond to its ideal. There seems to be a vague, indefinable something about it, which is ever whispering in the ear of Civilization, "Hold fast by me, or you are lost!" But examine the phantom, and it disappears. Whatever of reality it may once have had, has passed away. The language of the old encomiasts would now seem foolish and extravagant. "The jury system," says one writer, "considered as a means of deciding contestations between individuals and of