License of Speech of Counsel. plain of the railroad company; she jumped from the train on account of an alarm given by a Jew drummer, and if it had not been for that everlasting Jew drummer there would have been no trouble. There was no occa sion for alarm, and if defendant had not been a corporation, and supposed to have plenty of money, there would have been no suit brought by plaintiff." In the concluding argument for the plaintiff, counsel said : " The railroad company is a corporation without soul or conscience, but notwithstanding this, they have got a big pocket, and this you can reach, and if you fail to do it now, you may never again have the opportunity. The employees of a company will walk through the train and talk to passengers like pup pies " (who were the puppies?;; " so while you have a chance, teach them the lesson that they cannot be reckless with so valuable a thing as human life." . The court observed : "The remarks excepted to in the closing speech of plaintiffs counsel were not author ized by anything in the record; and in the remarks of opposing counsel, stated as provo cation, we fail to discover any justification." But a new trial was granted on another ground. So it seems that it is prudent for counsel to eschew remarks on the Wander ing Jew. Besides, a Jew " drummer " seems an anomaly. Perhaps a Jews-harper was meant. In Sasse v. State, 68 Wis. 530, the district attorney spoke to the jury as follows : " The defendant committed a crime in the old country, in Germany, and he fled from justice. He engaged passage in one ship, and then in another. He landed in this country, and went to Philadelphia, committing a crime there. He admitted that he knocked a hole in a man's head in the old country, and by his admission fled and committed a crime in Philadelphia, a crime on one of the citizens of this country." To these remarks to the jury the defendant's counsel objected. The Circuit Court overruled the objection, with the remark: "I suppose the previous history of the defendant may be given, but the fact
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that he committed one crime is no evidence that he committed this. The court permits the district attorney to proceed as far as to state the previous history of the defendant, with the suggestion, however, that because he committed one crime it is no evidence that he committed the crime of which he now stands charged." To which ruling the defendant's counsel excepted. The district attorney then proceeded as follows : " He assumed another man's name. He obtained money under false pretences, and told how he came to commit the crime before stated." The district attorney afterward repeated the remark that " the defendant knocked a hole in a man's head," — was it not at Holyhead? — which was also excepted to. The learned judge before whom the case was tried instructed the jury, in reference to these remarks of the district attorney, as fol lows : " You will not regard any statement of counsel that the defendant committed a crime in Germany, or that he was a fugitive from justice, or that he came here under an assumed name, all of which things are not in the case." On denying the motion for a new trial in the case, the learned judge remarked as follows: "The district attorney stated in his opening that the defendant had been guilty of some crime in Germany, etc. Whether that be such an error as will reverse the judgment I am not certain. That it was error permitting the district attorney to make the statement I have n't any doubt; but that it was cured I am of the impression. I am disposed to let the Supreme Court pass upon the question." The court on appeal said, among other things: — "These remarks of the district attorney, so grossly improper, unprofessional, and un just, and so repeated and asseverated to the jury, when their minds were entirely free from bias, prejudice, or partiality, when they had no knowledge or opinion of the defend ant, or of the merits or demerits of his prosecution, and before they had heard any evidence, and when they were bound to pre sume him innocent, must have produced
