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The Green 'Bag.
progressive and enlightened judges are among the opponents of jury trials. They complain that it is difficult to muster an intelligent and impartial jury. The most incredible stones are told of Russian jurymen. Thus, the foreman of a jury declared he would not send a poor fellow to prison, because it happened to be his (the juryman's) birthday. Another jury had agreed upon a verdict of guilty when the church bells began to ring. They revised their verdict be cause a holiday had begun. A burglar was al lowed to go free because the man whom he had robbed had refused to lend him money. This, in the opinion of the jury, was a direct incentive to crime.
cently by judge Emden, says the London Globe. A gentleman travelling from London to Hastings had occasion to leave the carriage at Tunbridge Wells, and took the ordinary precaution of re serving his seat with his umbrella and news papers. While he was absent another passenger seized his place and refused to vacate it until forcibly ejected. As a result an action for dam ages was brought against the original owner of the seat by the intruder, and a counterclaim for similar damages was entered by the other side as well. The judgment delivered was one which will commend itself to ninety-nine out of every hundred travellers. The claim for damages for ejectment was dismissed and the counterclaim allowed. For the future, therefore, the cantankerous JOHN RANDOLPH, of Roanoke, described Del aware as a State having three counties at low individual who persists in disturbing the comfort and convenience of travellers in the manner in tide and two at high tide. dicated will know how he stands, and that if the IN 1836 there were 52,000 convicts living in owner of the seat thinks fit to bundle him out foreign lands in a state of bestial immorality. neck and crop, the latter will not only have the Now, notwithstanding the increase of popula sympathy of the public but the law as well on tion, there are only 4,000 undergoing penal ser his side. There can be no question whatever vitude. And in this country, in 1837, 4,000 that the universal mode of retaining a seat in a debtors were lying in common cells, with clamp railway carriage is a most reasonable and con brick walls, with no bedding, and. herded with venient one, and the thanks of the public are murderers and common malefactors. Now due to Judge Kmden for his very clear and sen transportation and imprisonment for debt have sible interpretation of the law. Not the least been abolished. Just before the 'Queen's acces important point in his judgment is his assertion sion, a little boy was condemned to death for that the holder of a seat was entitled to use rea breaking a confectioner's window and stealing sonable force to eject an intruder. sweets. Now no one can be hanged for a less crime than murder. Executions are not in pub ALEXANDER STEPHENS, Vice-Président of the lic; the terrible scenes of witnessing them are Confederacy, was a striking example of a great done away with, and I hope the sensational mind in an insignificant body. He used to hoisting of the black flag will soon be a thing of speak of himself as weighing ninety pounds, the past. A friend of mine told me how, in his dressed. History accords him a place as one youth, he used to witness the executions at Ty of the greatest statesmen furnished by the South. burn. And within a few years there existed and Although he became prominent in secession may exist now, for all I know, on top of the councils, he clearly foresaw the folly of secession, house near the Marble Arch, which, when I was and it was due to his influence and efforts that young, belonged to the Dowager Duchess of Georgia was one of the last States to secede. Somerset, a bench from which the frivolous and Opposed to him was Robert Toombs, the most fashionable world used to witness with indiffer rabid fire-eater in the South, who made himself ence, if not amusement, these terrible execu notorious by his vindictiveness after the war, tions.—SIR ALGERNON WEST'S " Some Changes and who boasted he would die unreconstructed. in Social Life during the Queen's Reign."" Toombs was of gigantic build, always spoke in a loud, bombastic way, and, for all his ability, A JUDGMENT of the greatest importance and was a good deal of a bully. Although Stephens interest to railway travellers was delivered re and Toombs early became leaders of rival fac
