WITNESSES.
The protracted proceedings of our criminal courts are productive of one serious evil, which we have never seen noticed. Domestic servants, and others who appear as witnesses, must frequently wait, day after day, in the court-yard and avenues, or in the adjacent public-houses, until the cases on which they have been subpoenaed are called for trial. During these intervals they converse and become acquainted with others in attendance, a large proportion of whom are generally friends or associates of the prisoners. It is thus that the most dangerous intimacies have been formed; and many instances have occurred where servants, who have been seen in the courts as witnesses for a prosecution, have soon afterwards appeared there as prisoners.