The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-01-17
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC y. HAsKIN. Director.
washington, d. C.
WOMEN JURIEs NOW POPULAR.

Wksu1u&ton1 Os ~
WOMEN JURIEs NOW POPULAR
New York City, Jan. 14.-Impressed
| by the ability of women juries in New
Jersey. New York is now considering
the advisability of introducing women
! Jurors into its courts. A bill amend
! ing the present jury law to include fe-
male citizens of the United States" as
well as males ones, is to be submitted
! to the New York legislature this
month, and, as the legislature is
known to be fayorably disposed on the
question, it is believed that it will be
! only a short time before Ladies and
Gentlemen of the Jury will be an
established form in the courts.
With the change in the law, Jury
| service Will become an obligation on
| the part of women just as much as It
| is today with the men, and they Will
be subjected to the same strict rules.
| The present law provides that any per-
son subpoenaed for jury who fails to
respond is subject to punishment for
contempt of court, and may be fined
to the extent of 500. 1t is doubtful
whether this compulsory feature OF
the law will prove any more popular
novelty of jury duty wears Off, but Tor
the first few years there will pro-
baby be few attempts at evasions.
Under present conditions. the courts
are having more and more d1tflculty
in obtaining competent juries OF men.
No man, it seems, will serve on a jury
if he can possibly avoid it. Already
masculine ingenuity has been strained
in inventing a large assortment OF ex-
cuses from jury service, AND 1t may be
in the future a long list of feminine
excuses will be offered, headed by me
cessary shopping" and bridge club
meetings.
But so far, women have shown
themselves much more interested in
jury duty than men.
1t was Judge Daniel A. Dugan, of
the Essex county court. Orange. n,
j., who first tried the experiment in
this part of the country. In Novem-
Der. the judge suddenly found his
panel of 800 men jurors drawn for his
court<at the beginning of the year
excuses of one kind or another to re-
Iieve them of the work. So, being
more annoyed than usual. he took the
radical alternative OF drafting the new
ly enfranchised New Jersey women.
An Aristocratic Jury.
The women chosen were carefully
picked. and represented some of the
best families of Orange. Much to
the surprise of the court, they APP
summons. and none offered an excuse
to avoid serving. At the last moment,
it is true, Mrs. Thomas A. Edison tele-
phoned the judge AMI asked to be ex-
cused because her husband was i'll,
but she said that she would find some
way to come if he could not find some
one else to take her place.
According to Mrs. Everett Colby,
who was appointed forewoman of the
jury, the women talked the matter
over and decided that since they had
gained the ballot after such a long,
hard fight, they ought not to object
to fulfilling its responsibilities; when
the call to jury duty came they would
accept it without complaint.
sit was the most interesting ex-
perience," Mrs. NColby declared when
the trial was over. and the ladies were
discussing its features in the domestic
atmosphere of an Orange tearoonl.
1T was the first time had ever had
the chance to watch the operations of
a court, and there were lots of things
we didn't understand, but of course
we couldn't interrupt to ask questions.
1.-THE most astounding thing to me
was when two witnesses swore to eX-
actly the opposite thing on the same
pofnR We had to decide between them
as to which was telling the truth, and
we had nothing at all to go upon. We
knew nothing about their history or
what kind of people they were, and
yet we had to determine which one
was lying, and which one was telling
lying. But he was permitted to come
into court and swear to a lie that he
knew was a lie, and the jury decided
against him, decided that he was lying.
but he was allowed to go without any,
thing being done to him.
Our case, of course, was q simple
one" continued Mrs. Colby. 'There
was dentist who came from family
of hucksters. There were three broth
ers. and the dentist had taken one of
his brothers and kept him in school.
sending him thru high school. After-
ward, the boy became a huckster, but
also helped in the office of his brother.
the dentist. One of the witnesses. a
woman. testified that she went to the
dentists office one evening at o'clock
her. but the tooth broke, and blood
begin to flow. The boy told her she
would have to go away and come back
again when the tooth stopped bleeding.
A Sample Case.
"She went away and when she came
back her jaw was terribly swollen and
she was suffering intensely. The boy
explained that he could do nothing
until the swelling went down, but, as
the pain was so great, she decided that
she must have treatment Immediately
and went to another dentist. The new
dentist treated her and extracted the
piece of tooth left in her jaw, and told
her to take it back to the other den
tist and show him what had been done.
"Fhe three brothers all swore that
the boy was merely q huckster, and
that he had never been in the dentists
office and had never worn white coat
in his life. But the woman positively
identified the boy and other witnesses
also identified him and said he had
treated them in his brothers office.
The boy was placed in a geDup of men
seated in the courtroom, instead OF on
the platform, and still the witnesses
had no difficulty in picking him out.
They were also very positive in their
statements and could not be confused,
and they didn't have any reason to be
against the boy unless he really had
been in the office"
Furthermore. the boy did not make
a good impression in the court room.
He had a regular Charlie Chaplin
mustache. lovely complexion and big,