menee instead of logic and rhetoric. Others appeal to the sympathies, — it may be the passions and peculiarities, — of the jurors. Others combine all these with variations and accompaniments of different kinds. No cast iron rule can or should be laid down. Tears have always been considered legiti mate arguments before a jury, and, while the question has never arisen out of any such behavior in this court, we know of no rule or jurisdiction in the court below to check them. It would appear to be one of the natural rights of counsel which no court or constitution could take away. It is cer tainly, if no more, a matter of the highest personal privilege. Indeed, if counsel has them at command, it may be seriously questioned whether it is not his professional duty to shed them whenever proper occasion arises, and the trial judge would not feel constrained to interfere unless they were indulged in to such excess as to impede or delay the business of the court. This must be left largely to the discretion of the trial judge, who has all the counsel and parties before him, and can see their demeanor as well as the demeanor of the jury. In this case the trial judge was not asked to check the tears, and it was, we think, an eminently proper occasion for their use, and we cannot reverse for this. But for the other errors
indicated, the judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial." Thus it will be seen that tear shedding by counsel before the jury has now distinct judicial sanction, so, however, they be not indulged in to such excess as to impede or delay the business of the court. It should also be observed that a new rule of pro fessional ethics has been here introduced, in the declaration that it is the duty of a lawyer who has tears on tap, to give his client the benefit of them, whenever proper occasion arises. In woman, the convincing quality of this sort of argument has long been recognized, but its possibilities for the sterner sex seem to have been, until very recently, overlooked. Judge Wilkes' opinion in this case, which will be regarded by many as suggesting an additional resource in the matter of eloquence in jury addresses, should have the serious consideration of the profession at large. It would not be surprising if the incident related, with the judicial comments upon it, gave rise to a very common resort to this practice. And, indeed, the time may not be far distant when upon lawyers' cards and signs will be found the words " Lachrymal Arguments a Specialty," and every law firm contain its " weeping partner." A. R. W.
