responsibility of revising verdicts. To escape this the Supreme Court long ago adopted the microscope as part of the judicial apparatus. In this way the court is able to detect a germ which has secured a permanent, even if not an honorable place in our jurisprudence. This atom is often one of the smallest things in the world, yet quite easily perceived through the judicial microscope, and must be very nutritious, for wrong and injustice fatten upon it. You and I can't see it (when on the losing side of the case), yet it is found in every record that comes up from a jury trial, and no matter what else appears, it controls; especially if the case is a knotty one and the day warm. This powerful microbe is known in Supreme Court circles by the name of "some evidence to sustain the verdict." Just why called "some evidence" no one seems to know. Probably on the principle that Mark Twain's railway station sandwich was called a ham sandwich. You will recollect that Mark analyzed one of these abominations on a basis of 1,000 parts. The result showed of bread and varnish 999 parts, of butter 1 part, and of ham a trace; yet the whole thing was called a ham sandwich. You see, there was "some evidence" of ham. So there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that, after all, the trial judge is and must be the Thirteenth Juror; and in rare instances where he may yet be found in the full, intelligent, brave, unswerving discharge of this, the greatest function of the judicial office, he affords the grandest spectacle possible in a government of justice, liberty and law. But the fact of the matter is that in recent years the Thirteenth Juror has not been much in evidence in the State of Indiana. To be candid he has not been standing up to

his work. Proof of this is in your own experience. If you are so fortunate as to have had no such experience, read again the opinion of Judge McCabe, in 143 Indiana, where that learned judge, always clear and forcible, fairly outdoes himself, and in words of unrelenting and pitiless truth lays bare the real situation.

We all know just what is the matter with the Thirteenth Juror; he is afflicted in only part of his body; his head is all right, clear as ever, and his heart is in perfect working order; the trouble is with his spine: he suffers from weak back, of a chronic, and it is to be feared, a progressive type. The cause of this limp condition of his vertebrae is worth seeking for. Maybe it is because there are so many of him in the State. The Indiana Legislature never did a meaner thing than when it abolished the Common Pleas Courts and cut the State up into an absurd number of circuits, so called. The present Attorney-General had that donehe never did have sufficient veneration for the courts. Why, he wouldn't give a cent-I mean he wouldn't give two cents-for Judge Showalter's opinion. The good old words, Circuit Court, except in three or four instances, provoke a smile; and one feels more like addressing the incumbent of the office as His Honor, Judge of the Seventy-ninth Judicial Court House Square. Maybe the trouble with the odd juror is that he is elected instead of appointed; for there is high authority in the statement that a nation's greatest afflictions are war, famine and an elective judiciary. But the elective system has worked fairly well, and appointments have not always been a howling success in this State. A former Governor once appointed a circuit judge, and there was much curiosity among the

lawyers to learn of any reason why. It developed that a monster petition had been secured upon the representation that with the candidate it was a "ground-hog case." If so, of course the Governor upheld the law, for is not the maxim of our noble science, Lex semper dabit remedium ? And if a salary will not remedy short rations, what will? Moreover, the considerations which sometimes govern the selection of the Thirteenth Juror at the convention or the polls are not so far superior to that which controlled the Governor. It is understood that in some sections absolute belief in the efficacy of a McKinley tariff, and in others, like faith in free silver, are the requisite, and in some instances the leading qualifications for the bench. No matter what the cause, all will agree that the Thirteenth Juror is in a bad way. Time and change, machine politics and small circuits, primaries and party nominations and all the other canker of a calm world and a long peace have about done up the Thirteenth Juror in this jurisdiction. Under the influence of these things, or something else, he is about to collapse; and, like the victim of Rudyard Kipling's awful woman, it may be said of our Thirteenth Juror, "some of him lived, but the most of him died."

An Address to the Indianapolis Lodge of

Elks at the Annual Memorial
Services Held in Honor
of the Dead.

claim to public tolerance and to popular esteem.

This is, indeed, the very age of secret orders. The list constantly lengthens. Some are hoary with age, strong in tradition, and tenacious of lineage and history; others are painfully new in everything except in the high sounding names they bear, the coinage of which has well-nigh served to impoverish the vocabulary of antiquity. With none of these have we either controversy or rivalry; to each of them we accord the respect it deserves.

This organization, which has grown great under the simple though fantastic name of Elks, has for its prime object charity without ostentation. Its revenues are without qualification, subject to be thus appropriated with no condition or restriction except that the bestowal shall be known only to the order and its bene

ficiaries. It is one of those cheerful givers whom it is said the Lord loves. It does not employ the microscope to discover faults and frailties in those to whom its ungrudging charity is given. It realizes that all want and all suffering result from the wrong or sin of somebody at some time, and therefore, its mercies fall alike upon the unfortunate who have been good and the unfortunate who have been bad. The meat it serves to the needy is seasoned with the salt of hearty good-will, not meanly garnished with the bitter herbs of rebuke and reproach. Incidentally to this great object, our members extend to each other those gracious manifestations of courtesy, helpfulness and regard which naturally arise out of fraternal and confidential relations between gentlemen brought and bound together by the obligations of the order and the stimulus of a common and honorable purpose. We believe that we more surely accomplish the few things we attempt, because there are so many things we leave severely alone. We leave the matter of insurance and benefits to insurance and accident companies; we leave the matter of religion and pious care for the soul to the holy church; we remit the conduct of a man's private affairs and the question of his morals and his habits to himself, satisfied that these things must thus be conserved and cared for if at all. We require only an acknowledgment of the omnipotence and divinity of the Father, obedience to our laws, and substantial conformity to those regulations of society which are essential to the life and character of a gentleman. Upon this broad and generous platform, where even many of those classified as men of the world may stand without hesitation or hypocrisy, we have gathered a splendid membership of gentlemen to