Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/496

Rh soon as the Benchers had retired from the Bench table, private friends were allowed to flock in and partake of wine and dessert at the table assigned to their particular host, and the revels were generally kept up to a late hour.

"Next day, with light hearts, but many of us with aching heads, after the severe trials of the night before, we had to take divers oaths before a judge in the Bail Court, containing allusions not very complimentary to the Pope, or the Pretender, whoever that might be.

"After this swearing, which was, I recollect, interspersed with a fair sprinkling of cursing, I was entitled to call myself barrister-at-law. But the titular distinction was of very little use to me for a long time to come."

AN OBSTINATE JUROR.

OMPREHENSION of the facts of a case as presented by the evidence does not always enable jurors to render an appropriate verdict. A knowledge of the business, the details of which are involved, seems often indispensable to an analysis of the testimony, and an accurate estimate of the litigant's claims. When a juror happens to possess the required information, his fellows frequently defer to his views, and concur in the decision he recommends. But occasion ally his suggestions seem so impracticable that they deem it unwise to accord acquiescence. It is fair to say that in such cases the ignorance of the majority is at fault, although, perhaps, the persuasions of the single juror may be prompted by considerations neither presented by nor deducible from the testimony. The writer vouches for the authenticity of the following story.

In the year 1875 an interesting case to determine the title to some oil was tried in New Bedford, Mass. The jury was composed of farmers, mechanics, and merchants, all of whom were men of good sense and excellent judgment. Only one of them, however,—a merchant,—was familar with the principles and details of the business involved in the litigation. This juror was over sixty years of age, had had a successful business career of over forty years, and was regarded by his fellow-merchants as one of the clearest-headed of them all. He had also the happy faculty of imparting information simply and naturally, and he never antagonized his listeners by bold utterances, or displeased them by obtrusive manners.

Without dwelling on the facts in minutiæ, let us observe that the case was well tried and given to the jury. The result of the first ballot in the jury-room was eleven for the plaintiff and one for the defendant. The old merchant constituted the minority of one. A discussion began, and was maintained with earnestness, but in a friendly spirit. The dissenting juror was exhaustively explicit in commenting upon the testimony, and probably fortified his reasoning by abundant allusions to his own experiences. He had received his business training not many years after the whaling enterprise was first developed, and his experience embraced the busy years during which three hundred and fifty vessels were sent from the little port of New Bedford to prosecute the industry in near and remote seas. That that business was one easily understood and as easily carried on, is an erroneous belief. Rendered uncertain by the perils of the sea, a growing scarcity of whales, and the use of substitutes for sperm and whale oil, as well as by the financial hazards which attend all commercial callings, it demanded from its very nature, and especially from the necessity of awaiting the course of events for tangible returns, patient plodding, the husbandry of material