So many books have been written on this subject that I fear the only thing I can do is to follow the example of a belle at a recent Leap Year party, when she presented to one of our most distinguished after-dinner speakers, whom she had chosen as her partner, a bouquet of chestnuts.

A friend, hearing that I was to talk to you this evening on "Jury Trials," recalled to my memory to-day what was said once to a literary man about to go to Boston to deliver a lecture. A friend of his met him at the Club, and said: "Where are you going?" "I am going to deliver a lecture at Boston." He said: "I am glad to hear it. I always did hate those Bostonese."

I am tempted to follow the example of the old Arab whose laziness secured him three holidays in succession. Coming into the presence of his flock one morning, he said:

"Do you know what I am about to say to you?" And they all shouted with one accord:

"Yes! yes!"

'Lecture delivered before the students of Columbia Law School.

"Very well, then," he said, "those who know can communicate it to those who do not." And again he left them.

Now, on the subject of jury trials, the same question could be put, and you would all have to give one of the three answers that the old Arab received.

There is one thing you will all probably learn very soon, and that is: "One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning." But don't be afraid of that thorn. Go right in the first chance you get.

Mr. Justice Miller, of the Supreme Court of the United States, after stating objections to trial by jury, said: "I am forced to admit, however, that even in civil cases my experience as a judge has been much more favorable to jury trials than it was as a practitioner, and I am bound to say that an intelligent and unprejudiced jury-when such can be obtained-who are instructed in the law with such clearness, precision, and brevity as will present their duty in bold relief, are rarely mistaken in regard to facts which they are called upon to find."

This remark is in accord with the experience of almost all the magistrates who have presided at circuit. A good jury, a good theory, and a sensible conduct of the case is like Mrs. Battles' "a clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor of the game."

But cases are often not well prepared and are not well tried. Is it true, then, that one can go into a jury trial in a happygo-lucky style, and trust to the jury to do right? If it were true that a correct verdict is a foregone conclusion, preparation would be an idle form, and skill of no account.

But it is a great mistake to suppose that preparation out of court may not secure results that otherwise would have been lost. In the first place, jurors, like judges, expect a man to know his case. They take a business man's view of the situation, and soon begin to doubt a claim that is not stated briefly and proven clearly. Any word that counsel says that shows an ignorance of the true issue is a blow at his client's case. Why, only last month in the Superior Court there was a trial going on. It looked pretty bad for the defendant, a horse-railway company. The car had run over a man in Union Square right by the Lincoln Monument. The driver was drunk, and the car dragged this poor devil about

thirty or forty feet, and he was, what you might expect a man to be after such an experience as that. The counsel for the defendant was told it was a bad case, there was no defence, and he would have to get along and do the best he could. That case had n't been going more than fifteen minutes before it looked bad for the plaintiff; the plaintiff's counsel had opened to the jury that the accident occurred up near the Lincoln Monument. The plaintiff swore it occurred down by Fourteenth Street and Broadway. The counsel then tried to get it into the minds of the court and jury that the accident had so injured the man's memory that he did n't know much about it. "What is your theory of the case?" said the judge; "you ought to know the theory of your own case." The counsel floundered, when the judge said: "It seems the counsel himself don't know what the case is." This was the end of that case; it may have been a good one. The jury disagreed, although the defendant called no witnesses. There was a case in which counsel came into court in the happy-go-lucky style. He knew the plaintiff was badly injured, and thought that all he had to do was to sail in and get a verdict.

Mr. Harris says: "Do not imagine that you are always advocating your client's cause because you are putting questions or making speeches. You may ride a rocking-horse all day long and fancy you are hunting-a performance more creditable to your imagination than to your judg ment." And remember always that it is your judgment, not your client's, that is valuable. Listen to his suggestions, but do as you think best. One of the greatest mistakes an advocate can make is to let his client, be he attorney or party to the action, dictate to him the mode of conducting the

"There is na workeman

That can bothe werken well and hastily.
This must be done at leisurely parfitly."

Scarlett never composed any part either of his opening or reply. Nor do I believe that that sort of preparation that consists in preparing in advance what you will say to the jury is anything but harmful. The set speech betrays itself at once. It may well be, and it should be, that in opening an important case, involving complicated facts, the advocate should arrange with the greatest care the order in which he is to present the case to the jury. It is certainly true that those who have had the greatest success, however, have not been in the habit of preparing their closing arguments to the jury.

There was a great trial here not long ago, and the counsel who opened the case for the plaintiff took all day at it. He had n't been going more than two or three hours before the foreman, in an appealing tone, said to the Court: "What is the good of all this talk, why can't we get at the facts?" It was a terrible blow to the poor man, of course, but it only shows that you can overdo that sort of thing. In any event, avoid giving support to that definition of the legal mind - that chiefly displays itself by illustrating the obvious, explaining the evident, and expatiating on the commonplace. Go at once to the heart of the matter and take the jury with you.

it is difficult to spend too much time. It is possible to overload a case with details. It is not possible to spend too much time in stripping the case of what is irrelevant and immaterial, so that you can be lucid and brief. I am inclined to think that the curse of irrelevancy is perhaps the worst. thing that can happen to a man. You recollect that play of the "Senator" that we all used to go to see? You recollect the girl that rushes up to him and says, "Now, whatever you do, don't be woozy!" Now, I have always suspected that "woozy" must be slang for irrelevant.

I think it is Mr. Harris who says: "A case may be lost in court; but it is generally won before trial."

I suppose that there has never been a member of the bar of England or the United States who secured more verdicts than Sir James Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger, chief Baron of the Court Exchequer. He says of himself:

"I made it my business to know and remember the principal facts, to let the unimportant wholly out of memory; to open the case, if for the plaintiff, and when I expected evidence for the defendant, in the shortest and plainest manner, with no object other than to make the jury comprehend the evidence which they would shortly hear. I very seldom thought it necessary to make any anticipation of the defendant's case. It is oftentimes dangerous to do so, as it leads the judge and jury to seek for support to it in plaintiff's evidence.

A jury always wants to do the right thing, you may be sure of that; and it is expected of you to make clear what is the right thing. You can always becloud that by using too many words.

would admit, the proposition of which I maintained the affirmative, and the defendant's counsel the negative, and then, without reasoning about them, the leading facts in support of my assertion. Moreover, I made it a rule in general rather to understate than to overstate facts I expected to prove.

"From these remarks, it will appear that my success did not in the least depend upon those tirades of declamation which make the reputation of a speaker. Not in the most considerable and difficult cases in which I have carried the verdict can any one who reads the printed speech either take any interest in it, or even understand it, without reading over and understanding the whole evidence. I learned by my experience that the most useful duty of an advocate is the examination of witnesses, and that much more mischief than benefit generally results from cross-examination. I, therefore, rarely allowed that duty to be performed by my colleagues. I cross-examined, in general, very little, and more with a view to enforce and illustrate facts I meant to rely upon than to affect the witness's credit for the most part a vain attempt."

Scarlett, when he was leading for the plaintiff, relied on the reply. Copley, afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, and Erskine relied on the opening.

"A country attorney," says Brougham, "paid Scarlett perhaps the highest compliment when he said: 'Really there is nothing in a man's getting so many verdicts who always has the luck to be on the right side of a case.

Scarlett said of himself what few great lawyers have been able to say: "I never made a speech with a view to make a reputation, nor for any other object than to serve my client."

It has been well said of him: "Watchfulness, prudence in the management of a case, great moral courage in the choice or rejection of the means to be used on behalf of a client, experience of human nature, and great self-denial in the exhibition of that experience, these were the chief agencies by which he acquired his ascendancy over juries."

not

Much has been said and written on the art of cross-examination. It is difficult, if impossible, to condense it. But perhaps, after all, the best advice on that subject is that which, long ago, Punch gave to persons about to marry, "Don't!" It is not advice that even Punch expected his students to follow; yet it may serve to make one think before he tries it. If not, why then what you ask in a hurry you can repent of afterwards at your leisure. Cross-examining is a little like swimmingit looks easy enough until you try it. I suppose that every one who finds himself much at circuit has a somewhat more or less clearly formulated rule of conduct in the matter of cross-examination. The shortest one that I can think of, and I believe it a good one, is this: If you have no good reason for putting a particular question, you have then one good reason for not putting it. Putting questions at random to see what you strike is a perilous proceeding, punished often very quickly.

But, if you must cross-examine, what then? Well, the first thing to do is this: If your cross-examination brings out only an approximation of what you want, be satisfied with the result. If you get a reasonably good thing, it is your duty to recognize it. One method of crossexamination is said to be a good deal like the habit of some men when they strike oil. They are not satisfied when they strike oil or when they strike it pretty