Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/325

 The Green Bag

Published Monthly at $4.00 per Annum. Single Numbers 50 Cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, S. R. Wrightington, 31 State Street, Boston, Mass.

The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities, facetiae, and anecdotes.

THE DISAGREEMENT The absurdity of the rule that requires unanimity of jurors is the conspicuous lesson of the trial of Thaw. Because our saving Saxon sense has taught us to work an illogical system by tacitly ignoring its requirements, cannot justify its indefinite continuance. No other tribunal is required or expected to arrive always at unanimous decisions, how ever trained to the work of analysis, and yet we ask twelve plain men, faced with facts which have caused a difference of opinion sufficient to result in litigation, to see those facts alike. The truth is that jurors are not unanimous, and in the nature of things they cannot be. A few strong minds dominate, and all at length come to regard the defi nition of duties given them by the court as something the court does not really ex pect. And when now and then a conscien tious man of independent mind gets on the panel, counsel and court despair. Is it not time to insist that principles conform to practice? AS ENGLAND SEES IT The Law Journal has this to say of New York criminal practice. "To an English lawyer the Thaw trial reads like a travesty or abuse of the common-law procedure. The judge seems unable to re strain the conflicting energies of the numerous lawyers on each side who exercise a claim to equality characteristically democratic in rais ing distinct and conflicting pleas. A hypo thetical question of 15,000 words is allowed to be fired at a medical witness, and argu ments are raised as to the ' unwritten law,' which is supposed to entitle a man to slay anyone who at any time has inflicted a wrong on one of his female relatives, while vexed questions of brain-storm and other

new-fangled forms of mental unsoundness are dragged in at intervals, till the whole proceed ing seems like a mock trial prepared for the entertainment of the curious in mental abnor mities rather than a judicial investigation into a question of fact. Comparison of the two systems indicates that the English system, with its modern improvements, coupled with the effective control of the presiding judge, affords the better means of vindicating pub lic justice in a manner becoming the dignity of the offended law. And when it is remem bered that a verdict in the American trial may be followed by appeals ad saecula saecuIorum, it becomes evident that law reforms are urgently needed across the Atlantic in the interests of Law, which, in the end, are always the interests of the sovereign people. Salus populi suprema lex." LEGAL SHAKESPEARE An interesting suggestion as to the author of the Shakespearian plays has recently been made by Dr. Appleton Morgan, after reading Spedding's " Life of Bacon." "There was in London a certain young barrister, a son of the late Lord Chancellor, Sir Nicholas Bacon — recently then deceased, leaving a widow, Lady Ann Bacon, and one other son, named Anthony Bacon. This young barrister's name was Francis Bacon. A briefless barrister; he lacked for revenue (for ' lease of quick revenue,' as he himself epigrammatically expressed it). Of the privi leged class — a kinsman of dozens of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers — forced to live, without revenue, exactly as if he possessed revenue and to spareJ He used his pen, not only as a resource for bread, but to press himself ihto recognition in his profession. He composed lettersjfor others in their emergencies, even