IGNORANT JURIES.
" At the late Derby Assizes, the petit jurors were deliberating over their vet diet in a case of stealing from the person, at Chesterfield, wherein two men and a woman were charged ; and when asked by the Clerk of the Arraigns, whether the prisoners were guilty or not guilty, the foreman replied—' We find the woman not guilty, and the men guilty ; but we recommend them to mercy, because there is not evidence enough to convict them !' The consequence was, that a verdict of acquittal was entered for the whole of the prisouers."— Derby P.gier.•
It is to be hoped that in the next generation of Englishmen twelve such blockheads will not be found. It would almost seem that a special selection of the ignorant and stupid were frequently made to try men for their lives. Yet, from the mode in which jurymen are mostly summoned by the Sheriff, this cannot be the ease. Perhaps the sharp fellows contrive to escape the disgreeable duty. But these Derbyshire jurymen were honest though ignol rant. We have little doubt but that the charge of the Judge frightened them. Jurymen often feel afraid to acquit a prisoner ; which they think highly disagreeable to the court and counsel, whose time would then seem to have been employed to no purpose.
In we sense, not commonly considered by those who ring changes on the wisdom of our ancestors, it is fiirtunate that the trial by jury has lasted tillthe present tnne. That it has so lasted, is owing probably to the subserviency of juries generally to the intimations from the bench; and it will he allowed that most juries are too ignorant to decide rightly for themselves. But the schoolmaster will snake good jurymen of the rising, generation; and then the right of trial by jury will become of infinitely greater value, as a safeguard to the liberty of the subject, and an instrument in the administration of justice, than it ever has been yet.
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