Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-02
JUDGE EWING'S ERROR
Ilga Hoffman the First Woman Juror
Ever Drawn in This State.
SHE WAS SUMMONED INTO COURT.
Judge White Sees the Mistake and Releases
Her From Duty.
LAWYERS ARE LAUGHING AT TIE COURT

Most men who have brains sufficient have
an object in life, and lawyers and court Off
cials complain thst Judge Ewing:
penchant is for work-work-work-un
intermittent work and the selection Of
jurors who will do their whole duty. He
regards crooked juror as great an abomina-
tion as an uni Just balance is in the sight OF
the Lord. They say that while His Honor
in order to get vast amount of work done
takes all manners of short diagonal
cuts his speciality lies particularly in
the selection of jurors, and when it
devolves upon him to fill in one-third OF
the names that GO into the wheel, he keeps
tipstaves in sweat for three weeks, and is
never happy until he has all the registra-
tion books piled around him so that he is
hidden from sight He selected the panel
for this year, and in the list for the fifth
Monday of October succeeded in doing him
self proud.
A very comprehensive smile passed over
the countenance of Clerk Armstrong the
other day when he read from the venire for
the fifth Monday in October the name of
1lga Hoffman, jeweler, Twentieth ward, city
of Pittsburg, but Mr.. Armstrong wasn't
there to exercise a censorship of the selec-
tion.
Woman Drawn = Juror.
Ilga Hoffman did not answer and persist
ing in apparent contumacy, the Sheriff was
summoned. He deposed that Ilga, so far as
his knowledge went, had been regularly
summoned, so Deputy Sheriff Jim Richards
was instructed by Judge White to bring
1ro 20 ha To epa1,
pearance and apparent disrespect to the
court. Richards repaired to Ilga Hoffman's S
place of business in the Twentieth ward,
when a vision of beauty answered the sum-
mons and demanded to know what he
wanted. He explained, and the aforesaid
vision, a comelv matron with alabas-
ter neck, etc, as poets say, responded
quietly, II am she," The gallent Richards
caught conyulsively at the jewelry case,
but he overcame the shock after the svmpa-
thetic 1lga had thrown ice water in his face
On his return he reported that Ilga Hotf-
man, though taxed and held amenable to
the laws of Pennsylvania, and taxed with
out direct representation wore petticoats,
and Judge White accordingly made an order
excusirg her from jury duty. While she
might be the peeress of any one doing bust
ness in the court, she was no nearer peer
than, possibly, a femme sole trader.
Judge Ewing Gets the Worst of 1t.
Since then every LAWYER has it in for
Judge Ewing and it will be many day ere
he hears the end of it, though he stands
chance of being canonized bv the strong
minded sisterhood, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Sue Anthony, ct al, as the man who
selected the first woman juror ever known
TO tame. in Pennsylvania. There are plenty
of people who will contend that His
Honor would not have hurt the
jury if he had selected the entire
panel from the softer sex. In that
event, some people who figure two or three
times a wear on the jury list would fail to
find their names there, and suitors certainly
would not complain, at least not all of
them.
If the selection was an unintentional mis-
take, Judge Ewing can plead that the
Christian name 'Ilga" is so uncommon in
this country as to be just as likely to be put
in the male category with Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Peter, ETC., as among the Kittys,
Mollies Idas, Bessies, etc. which became
fashionable after the Mary AIMS, Barbara
Ellens, Ann Elias, Mary James and
Jerushas began to crate on ears polite.