rest the barber until he has completed the shaving. The latter's offence will be no greater after he has used the razor than it was while he was only ■ em ploying soap and brush."
The following anecdote bears upon the thin partition dividing from illegality the proneness of some judges to impress on juries their opinion upon facts. Half a century ago, in New York City, James J. Roosevelt was, as justice of the Supreme Court, about to charge in Oyer and Terminer, a jury who had been listening to evidence against a man indicted for poisoning his wife. He thus began his address : " I am hardly fitted by my feelings to calmly submit the case : these have been so wrought up by the evidence describing this wretched man sitting hypocritically by the bedside of his wife, cheering her with words of comfort, while feeding her with poisoned soup." The Justice had only ended this opening sentence when the accused's counsel, James T. Brady, a more intrepid and alert defender than whom New York never knew, arose. " I beg pardon, your Honor for interruption, but I must object to your assuming at the outset that my client fed poison to his wife. We have disputed that there was poison in the soup." " Quite right," returned the Justice; " you do so contend, but I believe the evidence to the contrary. However, gentlemen, don't be influenced by my opinion on the matter, for that is wholly within your province." This of course killed exception. But the manner of the Judge was so pathetic that the jury con victed. The lawyers in the Wyoming legislature are to a man advocates of further extending suffrage to women. But they are met by frontier laymen with speeches of which the following from a Laramie newspaper is a fair specimen : — "I think women were made to obey men. They generally promise to obey, at any rate; and I think you had better either abolish this Female Suffrage act, or get up a new marriage ceremony tofit it." "It ain't no party question, this bill ain't. / wouldn't let it come up in that shape. / would know better than that. This woman suffrage business will sap the foundation of society. Women can't
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engage in politics without losin' her virtue. It won't do her no good anyhow. She can't earn a dollar no easier than half a dollar if she does vote. "No woman ain't got no right to set on a jury unless she is a man, and every lawyer knows it, and I don't bleeve it anyhow. I don't think women juries has been a success here in Wyomin'. They watch the face of the judge too much when the lawyer is addressin' 'em. That shows they ain't fit for juries in my way of thinkin'. I don't bleeve she's fit for't nohow. Wot right has she got on a jury nohow?"
The word culprit is often mistakenly used by counsel and judges, as made convertible with the word prisoner or accused, whereas, in its origin, it is synonymous with convict through confession. In early Norman times the minutes of the criminal court were kept by the clerks in French. The pleas to indictments were entered either " culp able " or " non-culpable." If the former, the clerk made this entry, " cul," short for full word of plea, adding the word " pret," French for ready, and together signifying on the record, guilty and ready for sentence. The minutes showed many enterings of culpret written hastily as one word. In time the " e " changed into an "i " and a culprit was known as a guilty man ready for punishment. The word culpable appears upon the minutes of French magistrates and courts, as also the word pret, to this day.
Examinations into the mental position and surroundings of jurors summoned in New York City for criminal trials in order to answer challenges for cause or to the favor are permitted by judges to become so liberally exhaustive that recently counsel for defense in a pending cause cel'ebre asked a candidate for the jury-box, " What con stituted your breakfast this morning? " Objection was made by prosecuting counsel, and the judge called upon the questioning lawyer to show the relevancy of his query. " I am informed," said the latter, " that this juror is in the habit of eating pork-chops for breakfast, a most bilious food, and I cannot trust the life or liberty of a client to a man whose brain may be vitiated by the influence of bile." The judge, however, allowed the question for what it was worth, when the juror answered, " I ate three pork-chops for my break fast, and these always agree with me. I know
