The Indiscretions of a Juror

ville). The citizen should not complain of the almost exclusive use, by two or

three corporations, of an expensive marble and oak-trimmed courthouse. The State Legislature exists chiefly to make laws which those corporations need in their business. So, why con

sider a few courthouses? and my judgment after against corporations. In tween a workingman and

My prejudice the fact are any case be a corporation

I should be on the workingman's side

and unfavorable to the company. For this reason-the law was made by and for the corporation. A single citizen who goes a-gunning with a pea shooter encounters the corporations intrenched with twelve-inch disappear ing guns. Therefore it is the moral duty of jurymen and such common folk, whenever they get a chance, to

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dishonesty of the corporations and for the petty dishonesty of claimants— the kind of people who walk with a crutch until the day after the verdict and then throw the crutch away. If

the woman who is just a little shaken up in a railway car could be made to realize that by going into court she helps to make it harder for her sister who is really hurt, I wonder if we should have

so many fair perjurers on the witness stand. A court room is a good place to see the solidarity of society, and the way we all pay each others’ debts willy nilly. Since half the civil cases are actions in tort against public carriers, about every other case brings to the witness

stand that moral brother of the lawyer, the medical expert. Suppose a loco motive runs over a lady and gives her

join their pea shooter to the armament of the under-defended individual. Now, having put that as strongly as I

severe contusions on the right thumb.

can, I may say that in the majority of

the baby eats a chunk of coal and dies.

cases that I heard brought against the railroad companies the defendant seemed to me not clearly to blame. The public service company pays the penalty for being known as a wealthy corrupter

A doctor will tell the jury ("in your

of legislation, which most jurymen are inclined to punish. Ambulance-Chasers,

knowing this, bring the flimsiest cases against the companies, hoping to get at least enough to cover expenses. The result of this is that the company has to maintain a costly legal department

and pay thousands of dollars to slightly damaged and undamaged passengers. The company gets the money back from the public, for the dividends go on just the same. Under the present system of private ownership of public carriers there seems no way out of this

Six months later she has a baby, and

own words, Doctor”) that in the absence of any other coal, it was the coal on

the locomotive tender that killed the baby. Cross-examination -— But, Doctor, whether or not in this case there was

any other coal. C. P. ——I object. Judge ——That is not competent. He has not qualified as a coal-beaver. Jury (inwardly) —On a nice bright day we can see a barn door six feet away. It's a rotten case, but we'll give the

lady some money anyhow. The medical profession ought to come to its own rescue in the matter of court practice. I suggest that the American Medical Association pass a resolution that it is the duty of every physician

confusion of injustices. The individual who has a good case against the company

to testify as expert whenever he is

suffers both for the notorious wholesale

asked, and that the fee should be divided