Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1874-08-20
MOsLEM JUSTICE.

NY IIlcuu-l Will not give Ills name,
as the magnates of the law might chide
him for "telling stories out of school, T"
has been a Sheriff in our county for
years, and understands all the crooks
and turns of the law and courts. Not
long since / met him just set free from
an attendance upon the April term of
the Supreme Court, and he was par
ticularly worn and jaded. Said he, in
the course of conversation
81 tell you, sir, this trial by jury,
which we hold so high in the scale of
human rights, is the veriest humbug
that ever was. Tor fifteen years have
attended every term of our courts-the
Supreme, Judicial, the Superior and
the Law Terms-and the longer / live
In this experience the more disguised /
become with the lverage working of the
Jury system. In q squad of twelve
bility. Eight of them may be honest
and intelligent two of them may be
stupid and oloinionated and in nine
cases out of ten, at least, you will find
two who are partial and INSCRIPTIONS
two men who are friends of one of the
contending parties, and who will stick
to him through thick and thin.
"Only night before last, he went on,
&c was out in charge of jury from six
o'clock in the evening until almost day
light on the following morning. The
case was one of contract. The con-
tractor had sued for work done. The
defendant produced the written con-
tract In court, and showed that the
prosecutor had broken said contract in
nearly. every stipulation, and also
proved that not half the work agreed
upon had been done; and, further
more, he clearly established that, as
the contractor had left him, he was a
sufferer by the imperfect work thus i'm.
perfectly begun. Upon the jury were
found four friends of the prosecutor
men ignorant, pugnacious and stub
born. They insisted that the prosecutor
was entitled to full pay, as per contract,
for every days work performed, and for
every article of material furnished. And
they sat back against the wall and wait
ed for the other eight to give in. And
at three o'clock in the morning, after
having been under lock and KEY for
nine hours Git was Saturday morning,
and they must go home), those eight
men gave In r.
And my friend said much more which
1 will not repeat. He told things which
he had known to transpire in the Jury
room which would be hardly credited
by confding public. One was where
a tired jury decided an important case
by the flip of penny, Heads for the
plaintiff tails for the defendant"
Heads it was, and tile defendant got his
case.
Ny friends remarks and reminis-
cences brought to my mind few items
of my experience with Moslem justice,
and as we had plenty of time on our
hands, / related to nim the following,
as / have it in my Log of Three Years
Cruise upon the waters and shores of
the Mediterranean-1S41-2-3 and part
of 1874
81 We went from Jerusalemt to CONSTANT
nopIe overland when say, eve, ST
mean Capt. VIM. Nichols, Lieut..
Charles G. Hunter, Midshipman John
Mcleod Murphy, and myself, all of the
United States navy, and a small town
at the southern base of Mount Arjiah,
in tho Pachalic of Karamania. On the
evening of our arrival learned that an
old Mollah oman of law had come from