The Placer herald., 1857-07-04
From Harper's Magazine,
A Gentleman of the Jurv,

who are to serve the community in the ca
pacity of jurors, are periodically designated.
Not that prefer the stove heat of the court
rooms to the healthier atmosphere of my
own freside, or other peoples quarres to my
own peaceful private affairs; but partly be-
cause am old fashioned enough to regard
jury duty, like every other duty, as better
done than left undone, and partly because
| have never yet been able to devise any
excuse for its neglect which would pass mus
ter, either in the forum of conscience, or at
the bar of our city courts. am quite too
hale and hearty to venture toward the Bench
with a physicians certificate testifying of
chronic maladies aggravated by long continu-
ed sitting and close mental applications; |
cannot plead or personate that melancholy
and incurable deafness of which, on the first
day of every term, there are so many sad
examples; hold no commission in any bri-
gade, light or heavy to compel my service
on parade when ought to be in court; run
with no engine; | respect the Christian Sab
bath, so that Saturday brings with it no
special exemption; am Protestant and Pres
byterian, SO that neither Ash Wednesday nor
any saints day, feast or fast, movable or i'm
movable, ever affords me religious respite;
| have no friend at court, in the shape of
Judge or counsel, to reprieve me for week
at a time or commute my term from the full
fortnight to a half hour; nor have | yet diyin-
ed the secret by which all South Street and
Fifth Avenue, while grumbling with united
voice about the delays Of the law and the law
yers, and the degeneracy Of modern juries,
quietly shirk the work and leave it, like the
voting at primary elections, and other dis
agreeable items of the whole duty of New
Yorker, to be done by less reputable proxies,
rather than do it themselves
Well. there is popular prejudice in favor
Of trial by jury, and somebody must serve.
1t is light work nowadays compared with
those good old times somewhere about the
date of the Saxon IIeptarchy, when every
man on the panel was responsible for the
justice Of his verdict to the extent of his
property if not OF his lie. Those were the
times that tried the souls of jurors as we'll as
the issues joined between the parties ltigant.
Just think of having to hang for the fatal
intake Of having made an honest woman Of
Mrs. Box, when a verdict the other way
would have sent her reputation into the limbo
of lost characters; or Of being mulct in a
cool five thousand for conspiring with eleven
other men to make Twist, the Wall Street
banker, pay his note like an honest debt
when in fact it had been shaved, at first hand
at the unprinciped rate of three per cent. a
month";
But all this is DEPRESSION, and by way of
introduction to the personal reminiscence
toreshadowed in the title to these paragraphs
Am | suspected by this time of being my
self the gentleman there announced to the
public? BY no means; have hero in wait
inc, and he shall be forthcoming without fur
ther preliminary.
The last time was captured on the coast
of Nisi Prius, about the beginning of the
present year, just as was making my way
toward that dingy receptacle of public ser
wants, in the northeast corner of the Park,
which serves in the double capacity of engine
house and Courthouse | encountered in the
middle Of the path, leading thither from the
Hall of Records, a mass Of two hundred and
fifty pounds Of solid Dutchman, surmounted
by very striking but not very prepos sessing
physiognomy, screwed up from its ordinary
level Of stupidity to an indefinite point Of
curiosity and perplexity. A glance revealed
the cause of the dilemma. Meinherr was
vainly endeavoring to decipher the import
of one Of those familiar strips of blue paper,
"partly in writing and partly in print" which
| perceived at once was an invitation to the
same judicial matinee to which | was making
my way. In the desperate effort to extract
an idea out Of this cabalstic scroll at all haz-
ards, he was perusing it upside down, with
occasional references to the blank side, and
having just about touched bottom in his be-
wilderment, he caught my arm as passed,
and arrested me with the question,
"Mein freund, wo list der Superior Court?"
pointed to the shrine Of justice thus DIES
ignated, and we went up the steps together
Just as we entered the courtroom, the stem
torian voice of the clerk pronounced the
name of "Hans Kraut," whereupon my new
acquaintance responded, with such conscious
ness of personal identity and proprietorship
of that monosyIabic appelation expressed
in his tone, as to starte the whole assembly,
and raise the eyes of the Chief Justice him
self underneath their shaggy brows.
AS luck would have it, the first turn of the
wheel brought out Krauts name and mine in
close juxtapostion. We took our seats in
the jury box together, and on adjoining
chairs. Kraut was evidently in an atmos-
phere of novelty. 1t was his first appear
ance on that stage, and he was so desirous Of
administering justice with vigor and prompt
ness, that he was onl ly restrained by lack of
opportunity from rendering verdict, instan-
ter in every case on the calendar, before the
first one had actually been called on. When
this was called and fairly launched, and Court
counsel, and witnesses had taken one ano-
ther by the ears, after the fashion of legal
proceedings in general, Kraut settled himself
in his chair with the gravity Of a Lord Chan
cellor, and looked as wise as an owl.
Il was the simplest sort Of case. The