tives, neighbors, or trade or professional associates, they all have a place in their memories, arranged for the denouement of the Doe-Roe case. Richard Roe finds it convenient to go out of town and stay out, and the District At torney abandons the action. If John Doe had been tried and acquitted, the affair would have been public, and any questions as to the result could have but one answer. But John Doe has not been tried and acquit ted, so that the affair is not public; and when it gradually leaks out that he is no longer under indictment, the various Qui-his and Mrs. Grundys who make up his general acquaintance, bring forward for their com mon discussion and entertainment as many histories of the occurrence as were offered by Sir Benjamin Backbite, Mrs. Candor and other "friends" of Sir Peter Teazle touching his duel with one of the Surface brothers. "The indictment has been pigeon-holed"; "the indictment has been abandoned on ac count of a flaw"; " a nolle prosequi has been effected by a powerful political ally"; "a smart lawyer has so worked on the District Attorney that he has abandoned the case"; "the complainant has been bought off "; "a private settlement has been made." These are a few of the many misstatements that are liable to be set afloat and believed; since in regard to any event whatever, while the truth can only fill one straight channel,
there can be a million circuitous channels, each brimming over with its own particular falsehood. And all these erroneous state ments that we have mentioned are damaging to John Doe's reputation as a man and a citizen. Years of exemplary conduct will be required to live them down. In fact it often happens that a citizen never fully recovers the ground lost by such a failure of justice. Judge Gildersleeve, now on the Supreme Court bench in New York, once instructed a grand jury, in his capacity as a judge at General Sessions, to be rigorously scrupulous as to how they brought in "true bills" of indictment, stating to them that, after an in dictment was once found against a citizen, no earthly power could thereafter remove the stain. It does not follow that this is true because Judge Gildersleeve said so; but we may consider it true that the stain can never be removed except by an acquittal. An acquittal means that a selected body of citi zens, brought into court as a jury, and sworn to render their verdict on evidence laid before them, have examined into the truth or falsity of the charges, and have pro nounced them false. This is the highest vindication, and the only real vindication, and it is the vindication which every citizen is entitled to demand from the people of the State, who against his consent have com mitted him to answer a criminal charge.
