" Sleeping Attorneys'
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But not to warrant and defend 'em When Ursa Majors seek to rend 'em, But rightful lords and lawless squatters For title then to trust their trotters. In witness whereof, super Vellum, I set my manum et sigillum. Year eighteen hundred six and sixty, September third, О Deed, I fixed ye, — May Sirius ne'er in wrath o'erwhelm us : Subscripsi. VuLPUS GULIELMUS. Acknowledgment et ceterarum Justifia et pacisque quorum. ) Received Sept. 22d, 1866, examined by LOAMMI HARDY, Recorder. A true Copy of Record, Attest JAMES O. GERRY, Register of Deeds.
SLEEPING ATTORNEYS." BY JOHN DOUGLAS LINDSAY. TN the early days of the present century
- - juries in Connecticut were not protected
against approach and improper influence, but on the contrary no safeguards what ever against embracery seem to have been provided. Lawyers' fees being low, each litigant em ployed two and sometimes three attorneys; and all of these were required to perform the full value of their fees. Accordingly the trials were prolonged to an absurd length, and the most trivial causes often engaged the entire time of the court for several days, each of the counsel, in addition to the share he performed in the examination of witnesses and the raising of points of law, being ex pected to make at least one long speech.
During each day's session the courts took two recesses, the jurors meanwhile enjoying the most complete freedom, coming and going as they chose without regard to whom they met or conversed with. Pending the pro ceedings upon the trials and before the charge was delivered by the presiding judge, the court exercised no surveillance whatever over the conduct of the jurors. It naturally followed that the jurors pub licly discussed among themselves and with strangers, in the taverns and elsewhere, the features of the various cases, discoursed upon the justice and merits of the causes with the suitors themselves, and with their friends and partisans. Indeed the practice was so well established that conduct of this sort, which
