The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1879-08-16 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1879.  ONE has often heard of the eccentricities of juries, but due allowance has generally been made for the imagination of the narrator. It now turns out that even in a matter of life and death a jury of Englishmen can act in so inconceivable a manner as the twelve good men and true did at Derby the other day. The old proverb about Derbyshire men being strong in the arm and weak in the head has apparently received undeniable confirmation in one respect. On no other supposition can we imagine a jury, sitting in judgment on a prisoner charged with a capital offence, arriving at their decision in so reckless a manner. It is perfectly true that they did not, as was at first suggested, actually toss-up for the verdict, but they did what was tantamount to it—they balloted for their foreman, after being equally divided, in order that he might be able to give the casting vote. This he gave in favour of guilty of wilfal murder, and on this balloting hung the life of GERALD MAINWARINCL a prisoner accused of the wilful murder of a policeman. That the capital sentence will not now be carried out is almost a certainty, but what course will be adopted with regard to MAINWARING remains to be seen. There has evidently been a sort of laches—a miscarriage of justice we might almost call it—on the part of the jury, which will necessitate a new trial, thouth the fact of a prisoner being tried twice for murder will certainly be an anomaly in our English Courts of Law. In the meanwhile Englishmen will have some reaion to be ashamed of this eccentric jury, while Derbyshire men will certainly not be proud of the unenviable notoriety in which their native county has been placed by the stupidity—for we can call it by no other name—of twelve of their brethren.  THOSE persons who hope to convert the intemperate by means of coffee-houses and such like are nothing unless sanguine. It is perhaps as well that it should be so, for they have undertaken a work to which the cleansing of the Augean stables is a mere tr;tle. To a certain extent we cordially agree with them. There will be no chance of providing against drunkenness, or the excessive cor gumption of alcohol, unless a cup of tea or coffee can be obtained as easily, as readily, and as cheaply as a glass of beer. The establishment of a coffee house with this object is therefore a praiseworthy undertaking, though, unless it be properly managed, it may not be an unmixed good. We have, ere now, heard complaints even against coffee-houses, but they may, for ought we know, have been promulgated by those sinners, the publicans. We must not, however, be led away by the assumption that because a man drinks a cup or two of coffee, instead of a glass or so of beer, therefore, ipso facto, he becomes a good man, incapable of committing a murder or becoming a suicide. There are some people who are always rushing into extremes ; they must either give up drinking altogether or they must get drunk. All such ought to be teetotallers, and for them coffee-houses are a necessity. For others, too, a well-managed coffee-house—where cigars are not supplied to mere youths, and where latent gambling and objectionable language are not only forbidden, but nipped in the bud—is a comfort, and almost a luxury. Under these circumstances we may say that we wish well  what is known as the coffee-house movement  all we want to guard the public against is the belief that it is infallible, or that financially it will be a SUCCeSB.