"A Disgusted Laymaris" Views. confined in jail for 90 days for not arriving at the correct inductive conclusion on the point between C.O.D. and ordinary collec tions, may be, abstractly, very proper, but the layman knows his libetty ought not to hang on such delicate distinctions as that. The distinguished counsel for the victim — now a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court — remarked to the State Supreme Court that this decision was one of the class that brought the law into derision, and a " Disgusted Lay man " felt much encouraged at this substan tial endorsement of his view that such "law" was an ass. (Of course the Supreme Court reversed.) Now it is not worth while kick ing up a stir at individual asininities in ad ministration of law. As long as we have "gentlemen of the long ears," they will some times don the " long robes," and their ears will stick out. But it is eminently proper, and thoroughly consonant with progress of right and justice, that such asininities be not afforded shelter under the coat-tails of " My Lord Bracton," or any other fossil, that evident injustice be not perpetrated under cover and patronage of abstractions like that establishing that men must have mouths eight inches wide, or that by which it is established that if Bill, in Illinois, sells Jack his pocket-knife that he has just brought over from Indiana, is it "inter-state commerce"! Let every ass be obliged to bear the full burden of his ears, and fewer of them will get into positions designed for wise men. Of course I am not proposing that lawyers become altruists at once. It would be a bad thing for us all. Had altruism been the rule since the beginning of the human race, we would still be cave-dwellers, for selfishness in some form — call it emulation if you will — has been and always will be, the hidden spring that forces all human progress for ward. Such fanciful nonsense as that law yers should not keep accounts or render bills, that their pay be all honorariums, is balderdash, and it is your " Disgusted's" private opinion that a good many lawyers
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who admire that view do it in dread of being identified as the individual for whom the proverb was designed, " the laborer is worthy of his hire." Your " Layman " has very correct ideas of jury service, and a " Disgusted Layman" hardly knows that his disgust at jurors does not equal that he entertains for law and law yers. Did it ever strike you lawyers what an excellent thing it would be for you if you all had a course of jury service to educate you in what the average jury thinks of things? For instance — your " Disgusted Layman" was once on a jury in Criminal Court, trying a miserable petty roadside-scrap assault and battery case. Left to themselves, the jury would have disposed of the case without leav ing the box by acquitting and dividing the costs, but the " member of the Bar " who de fended, only belonged to the Bar for the sake of going to the Bar Association picnic, and was worked up on the importance of his case. He quoted Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution of the United States, and finally the statute of the "State, to convince the jury that when a man was as saulted he wasn't guilty of assault and bat tery in striking back, until he kept us over half a day trying a contemptible case that ought not to have taken half an hour, and the jury were determined to " get it in " on that lawyer somehow, and on retirement, the only unanimous motion was " Move we ac quit and put the costs on Mr. "(said member of the Bar for the defendant); every hand went in in " aye" for that motion, and if Judge or Judge had been on the Bench, that verdict would have been ren dered, but several of us knew that Judge , who tried the case, had no more notion of humor than a cow, and would not see the joke, but send us back with a reprimand. Then is it amusing to note the solemn view raw jurymen take of their oaths and obliga tions to their country. In the first few trials the newjuryman gets on, he will ponder and argue whether Molly Jones's calling Betsy
