Jury Challenge. ings are protracted and the jurors nightly re turn to their homes. During the aforesaid trial a decoy interview was originated by somebody of two suspected jurymen — the accused having employed Pinkerton detec tives and the official prosecutor policemen as such shadowers — that resulted in a motion being made to exclude these suspects from further attendance; but these on being re-ex amined by the presiding judge purged them selves of suspected incompetency because of bias and so saved a delicate question of regularity if he had disqualified them and sworn two new jurors in their places. Under the tediousness of the system of jury challenges in New York, and the legal license extended to it, there is some proba bility of the legislature being called upon to define and limit the power of examination in to juror competency. And there is another evil connected with the prevailing system in that all which a summoned juror who desires to escape duty has to do for that purpose is to intentionally
31
form an opinion and express it as to the guilt or innocence of an accused in a cause celebre, when he will be set aside and relieved of duty. And towards such a formation or ex pression the daily press, that before courts obtain the chance first tries criminals, will afford him abundant means. This subject of jury challenge cannot be dismissed without reference to the curious inversion which time has brought about; for at the inception of the Saxon jury it was composed necessarily of neighbors from the vicinage of the dispute or of the crime; and who were witnesses to the facts involved; and who of course had private knowledge with unquestionable private sympathies or else prejudices regarding the facts which they were to decide upon. While, now-a-days, the jury must be composed of men who are utterly, in person, ignorant of the facts to be tried; and in knowledge thereof the con verse of the early jurymen. Ground for challenging the modern juror is that he is the exact opposite of the original juryman.
O'CONNELL AS A LEGAL RACONTEUR. I. IN 1848, the year after O'Connell's death, says "The Law Times," Mr. O'Neill Daunt, who had been one of Mr. O'Connell's parliamentary colleagues and his private secretary, published a work entitled " Per sonal Recollections of O'Connell," which is a treasure-house of witty sayings and stories of O'Connell. The reminiscences which re late to O'Connell's experiences at the Irish bar may well be revived, and are full of in terest for legal readers. Standish O'Grady — Viscount Guillamore — was Lord Chief Baron of the Irish court of exchequer from 1802 till 1831, during the period of O'Connell's career at the Irish bar.
"In 18 1 3 some person having remarked to O'Grady," said O'Connell, " that Lord Castlereagh by his ministerial management had made a great character for himself. — ' Has he,' said O'Grady, ' faith, if he has, he's just the boy to spend it like a gentle man.' — O'Grady," continued O'Connell, "was on one occasion annoyed at the disor derly noise in the courthouse at Tralee. He bore it quietly for some time, expecting that Denny (the high sheriff) would inter fere to restore order. Finding, however, that Denny, who was reading in his box, took no notice of the riot, O'Grady rose from the bench, and called out to the studi ous high sheriff, ' Mr. Denny, I just got
