and who afterward was describing the agonies he endured in the sea passage when he first went out. Sir George listened with great commisera tion to the recital of these woes, and said : " It 's a great mercy you did not throw up, your appointment." A prisoner was brought before a Dutch justice in eastern Pennsylvania charged with stealing. "Guilty, or not guilty? " demanded the justice.
- ' Not guilty, your honor."
"Den go avay, — vat you vant here? Go apout your pishness!
NOTES Apropos of Hon. Alfred Russell's advocacy of the abolition of the jury system in civil cases, the following remarks of the late Hon. Emory Wash burn will be read with interest. They are taken from a lecture delivered by him in the Law School of Harvard University : —
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fiecent SDeattjsi. Judge Benjamin Hall died in Auburn, N. Y., September 6, aged seventy-seven years. He was formerly Governor Seward's law partner, and had held many important positions of trust, — local, State, and national. President Fillmore appointed him to make a compilation and revision of the accumulated official decisions of the attorneygenerals of the United States. President Lincoln appointed him Chief-Justice of Colorado, — a po sition of great peril at the time, he narrowly escap ing assassination for a bold ruling; namely, that in cases of armed rebellion against the Government the courts could suspend the issue of writs of habeas corpus. Judge Hall retired from the bench in 1864. He was the author of several volumes on law topics, and a prolific writer, for several years having an editorial position on the " Auburn Advertiser." Hon. Robert D. Ray, ex-Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, died on August 26. Judge Ray was born in Lexington County, Ky., Feb. 16, 18 17. He graduated from Cumberland College in 1838, and went to Carrollton, Mo., in 1839. He speedily attained a high rank at the bar, and was especially well known for his ability in the many difficult cases arising out of the im perfect and uncertain land-titles in that section of the State. He was a member of the Missouri Legislature in 1846, and of the Gamble Conven tion in 186 1. He remained continuously in the practice of his profession until 1881, when he as sumed his seat as a member of the Supreme Court. He withdrew from the bench in January, 189 1. (An excellent portrait of Judge Ray was published in the April number (i8gi)of the Green Bag.")
"Nobody can hold the office or character of an intelligent, upright judge in greater respect and ven eration than I have been taught lo do. The people have no safeguard or protection on which they can so confidently rely, for lite or property, as upon an enlightened and independent judiciary. But when men talk gravely of substituting the learning and experience of the court tor the good sense, practical experience, and unbiassed instincts of an impartial jury, they do violence to history, and injustice to the cause of personal liberty and right. And while I would not let a jury trench a hair's breadth upon the province of the court, I have no hesitation in saying that for trying and settling disputed questions of fact, through the instrumentality of human testimony, where men and their motives are to be weighed and scrutinized, and balances are to be struck between Hon. Oliver P. Mason, ex-Judge of the Su conflicting witnesses, I had rather trust to the verdict of twelve fair-minded men of average shrewdness preme Court of Nebraska, died August 18. He and intelligence, in a jury box, than the judgment of I was a native of Brookfield, Madison County, N. Y., and was born May 13, 1829. His parents were any one man trained to the habits of judicial investi gation, and accustomed to measure his conclusions natives of Rhode Island, and of English-Irish de by the scale and standard of the law I had rather scent. He resided at home during his minority, trust to the honest instincts of a juror than the learn working on his father's farm. He attended the ing of a judge. Nor do I believe that in the history district schools of his neighborhood, also the of the courts of New England there are more in academy at Hamilton, and the Clinton Liberal stances of mistaken verdicts than of mistaken rulings by the judge The most we can expect from either Institute, then under the presidency of Dr. Perjurors or judge is an approximation to accuracy in j kins. In 1850 he graduated at the State Normal 1 School at Albany. After about two years' teach the respective spheres in which they act "
