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The Green Bag.

is ever present in the verdicts of coroner's courts. The following are examples of what one would call " second nature" : " We find that the child was strangled, but we are not satisfied whether it lived or not "; " We are unanimously of the opinion that death was due to natural causes, accelerated by the ac cident," — " death was due to heart failure arising from congestion of the lungs, acted upon by the bite," — the case had a dog in it. I believe it required twelve Warwick shire jurors to return the monumental ver dict of "We find the accused not guilty, but we should like the court to reprimand him." Whether the sons of Warwick were influ enced by the words " Sweet mercy is nobil ity's true badge," or whether they bore in mind the Cowperian line, " Mercy to him that shows it is the rule," and determined to do their duty, and at the same time provide for the future, who can say? I have heard it related, how truly I cannot tell, that in an undefended case the foreman of the jury returned to the court-room with his colleagues and informed the judge that, although they were eleven to one, the pros pects of their all coming to an absolute agreement was remote, as one man obstin ately refused to agree with the other eleven. Perhaps he had in mind Pope's lines — "The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine," and did not wish their sense to be applied to the panel of which he was so prominent a member. The judge, annoyed that any one could so obstinately refuse to deal out justice, addressing himself to the juror, went over the case, point by point, with elaborate care, finally demanding how he could refuse to find a verdict of guilty in so obvious a case. Then a voice piped forth : " That 's exactly, my lord, what I 've been trying to persuade the other eleven."

That the Erin Isle is keeping up its repu tation is evident from a case tried in the Dublin Recorder's Court last year. The Recorder, after explaining the law, said : "Gentlemen of the jury, you will acquit the prisoners." (This term is used in Great Britain in place of "accused.") The issuepaper was then presented to the foreman of the jury who signed and returned it; where upon the Recorder, as a matter of form, en quired : " Gentlemen, you find the prisoner not guilty? " " No sir," replied the foreman promptly, "we find him 'guilty.'" "Surely not," remarked the Recorder, " I said ' Gen tleman, acquit the prisoners.' " " / thought you said, ' convict calmly answered the leader of the twelve important men. A sympathetic London jury, some years ago, found a prisoner guilty, but recom mended him' to mercy, saying that if the judge would suspend sentence they would send the malefactor, who was a foreigner, back to his native land : and what is more, they kept their word, even seeing the man safely aboard the steamer. Another London jury, whose eyes were filled with " the tear of sympathy, the milk of human kindness " to such an extent that they were absolutely blinded, emulated the generous treatment meted out by their brethren referred to above, by bringing in a verdict of not guilty, in a case of pocket-picking, and having done so, presented the accused with twelve shil lings subscribed by themselves. It was an unpleasant moment for these jurors when the judge, after the verdict had been an nounced, blandly remarked : " I may now tell you, gentlemen, that this man has been convicted many times." No wonder that the compilers of Magna Charta insisted on the fact that juries are the bulwarks of the people's liberty — of some people's.