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 The Green Bag

172

Green Bag, and Mortville is a transparent equivalent for Dedham. However, his obser vations are not to be deemed too closely linked with any particular section of the country, and may be typical of many a semi-rural county. The article was ﬁrst pub lished in the Boston Transcript of Feb. 8, 1911, and is reprinted with its courteous

permission.

HE aged constable of the town of Fareham accosted me in the post ofﬁce, and holding a paper under my nose, informed me that I had been drawn as juryman.

I was to report for the civil term of the Superior Court about to sit at

The panel numbered thirty-odd

and

that is a large enough handful of men to insure a good human average. (Lawyers

by the selection of their craft are below the human average.) Our jury was well mannered, did not quarrel, was conscien tious and laborious in the consideration

Mortville in and for the county of Wessex-God-save-the-Commonwealth-of

of cases. There were two or three block

Massachusetts. From my neighbors I learned that there were various pre texts on which I might ask to be excused. But I was advised that being a literary

me — a blockhead is always a man who

man (in my town any sort of journalist is a “literary man") I should ﬁnd the court experience good material. My

fellow townsmen are always solicitous about my material. When I fell off the roof and broke my leg, they congratu

lated me because I could use the experi

heads (who, of course, disagreed with thinks as you do not), and there were

one or two idlers who paid little atten tion to the cases. The great majority were sensible, honest, hard-thinking men. There is a notion current among

half-educated people, who prove their inferiority by thinking themselves su

perior, that the jury system must be a great mistake. A few days after the

whether I ever wrote another word or

opening of the term I went into a literary club in Boston. A Boston literary club consists of ﬁve members who cannot write and several hundred

not.

members who have never tried.

ence in a novel. I agreed that a session in the jury box would be good experience Moreover, I had no excuse to

I met

offer the judge, because being a “literary man" I have no honest occupation, no private business which I have a right to regard as important. Finally, I

one of those who have tried, a good man, but too highly cultivated ever to have

consider it dishonest to try to escape public business and throw it on some

to have a man like me on a jury. After the waiter had brought them, we con

body else.

I reportedat the court house.

My fellow jurors were men of many

had much real education. I told him of my jury duty. He said it was unusual

tinued the conversation.

I found it

was not that my club friend thought much of me, but that he had a poor

occupations, of all ages, and of a good order of intelligence. It may be that

opinion of juries.

in the cities respectable men shirk the duty, and undesirable job-seekers ﬁll

selecting jurors. Yet he was sure that juries were as a rule uneducated. I

the jury boxes.

said these jurors were good men. “Well, what sort are they?" he asked. "Why, just thirty men, same as thirty

I doubt if that is true,

and I know that no such condition prevails in my county. Our jury was immeasurably superior to the lawyers in point of intelligence and honesty.

He knew nothing

about courts or about the system of

men you might pick up anywhere, around this club."