The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1874-03-24
The Jurors Reason.

N
LAhave long been the uncomfortable por-
tion of that one juryman of the else unani-
nous twelve who inexorably refuses to agree
with his exasperated associates on a verdict;
but there have been cases in which his
seeming perversity has proved ultimately
to be the salvation of justice, and a ven-
cradle English judge, recently deceased,
was wont to cite one instance in his earlier
judicial experience when such perversity
led TO an astounding discovery of mistaken
truth.
A man who was on trial before this
the murder of neighboring landlord,
with whom he was known to be on bitterly
unfiiendly terms, protested actually with
prayers and tears that he was wholly in
nocent of the dreadful crime though ac-
knowledng his enmity to the dead man on
account of some disputed boundary between
their properties, and that the clothing he
wore and afterwards concealed on the day
Of the tragedy was deeply stained with hui
man blood. As he earnestly told and re-
ming walk, as customary, crossed the fields
of a certain farm, and stumbled upon the
body Of n man, who was lying dead amongst
some corn with two deep wounds in his
breast, apparently made by n pitch(ork
near at hand. Raising the prostrate figure
to ascertain if life yet remained, he was
stained by the blood, and discovered that
the victim was his own quaTelsome neigh
Dor. Humanity at first impelled him to
give the alarm but in another moment
the thought of his well-known differences
with the slain man filled him with cowardly
fear of being connected with tho murder.
The idea so increased in it's terror that he
turned back to his home, removed his dis
coloIed clothing, and hid it i'll the barn
where the police afterwards found it,
But this story did not appear reasonable
to the Court; and despite the prisoners
passionate persistency in it, and despairing
cry that " God and his conscience knew
him to be wholly innocent" the case went
to the jury with apparently absolute cer-
tainty Of instantaneous conviction.
Such, indeed, must have been the result
but for the dissent OF one juror, and he the
foreman. This person, a man of education,
high social and moral estimation and large
property, begged the Judge to permit the
jury to retire for consolation, and then so
reasoned, pleaded, and actually prayed with
his associates against their unanimous
Judgment as to fairly weary them finally
into joining him in n verdict of acquittal.
But the astounded Chief Justice indig-
nantly refused to accept the verdict, and
sent them back again and again to their
room, until at last he was Obliged to accept
it. The unhappy men, cursing their FORE
man, were discharged in disgrace, "with
the blood of an unavenged murder left at
their door, though the prisoner, at his
unexpected and seemingly miraculous re-
lease, fell upon his knees in Court with the
cry: "You see, my lord, that God and
clear conscience eau save the lost"
When the Judge subsequently heard by
what means SO strange verdict had been
effected, and that the man responsible for
it was both intelligent and OF high char
acter he obtained conference with the
obstinate juror and adjuIed him to explain
his incomprehensible conduct in the matter
The late foreman exacted pledge of Sc
crecy to last during his own lifetime, and
then calmly told why he had labOred SO
intlexibly for the accused mans life. On
the morning of the murder the man doomed
to be killed, who was the tithing-man of
the parish, called early to collect tithes on
the speakers corn, and was 80 arbitrary
and violent in his mann CT as to provoke in
dgnant remonstrance. Becoming enraged,
the tithe- gatherer assaulted the other with
pitchfork which he was carrying, and
which belonged to neighbor, and in de-
fence Of his life the assailed man wrested
the weapon away, and in SO doing inflicted
wounds of which the aggressor fell dead on
his way home
So the actual slayer was the coming
foreman of the jury-a position he secured
for himself at great pains and expense, that
he might save AN innocent man from dream
full punishment for crime which he him
self committed in self-defence.
tB- "Here's your money boy, and now
tell me why your Iascally master wrote