morning. Of the rest of the jury, one was a blacksmith and two were mechanics, all steady workers; one was a horse trader, one a groceryman. one a retired farmer and trader, and the last man was an ex-railroad man who had no business. Every one of this jury was accustomed to be in the open air, and had not read details of the case, although he had heard it talked over. Not one of these men would have been chosen to take charge of any trust, or to decide on any matter outside of his everyday life—simply because, on general principles and from common-sense observation, he would have been considered clearly incompetent.
For ten days this jury was confined from five to six hours a day, listening to the testimony of the mental capacity and motives of the maker of a will that was disputed. Of course, they disagreed; and had they reached a unanimous verdict, its wisdom and justice would have been a matter of accident.
In a celebrated case tried in an interior town in New York, a most complicated chain of circumstantial evidence, involving the questions of concealed motives of unusual acts and conduct, of blood-stains, of the accuracy of chemical and microscopical work, of different opinions of competent men, was submitted to a jury of the following persons: one carpenter, one wagon-maker, three coopers, two farmers, one groceryman, one contractor, and three nurserymen. These men all testified that they had not formed an opinion on the case, although it had been town talk for months. Not one of them could naturally have given an intelligent opinion on any of the issues of the case, even if they had been presented in the most impartial, simple manner by the judge. When two opposite views were urged by opposing counsel, in an adroit partisan manner, the most uncertain mental confusion would be inevitable.
This particular jury was not only incompetent naturally and by want of training to discriminate facts that were unfamiliar, but its members were unaccustomed to consider any range of facts compared with others to determine which were true.
In a third celebrated case, a jury composed of four fishermen, two shipbuilders, two stonecutters, one clerk, two merchants, and two persons of no business, was asked to decide on the facts of one of the most mysterious cases of poisoning. A number of expert witnesses and shrewd lawyers extended this case two weeks, and gathered a mass of statements that only the most astute judge could have disentangled. These jurymen were not only bewildered, but were mentally palsied by the appeals of counsel.
The methods of selecting jurors are thus literally open doors for the defeat of the very purposes of justice. The ostensible purpose in the selection of a jury is to secure men of honesty,
