"Jury!" he said, with a bitter smile; "it is plain to see you are a stranger and come from a newly settled part of the world, and know nothing of our modern civilization. The jury would do whatever Prince Cabano desired them to do. Our courts, judges and juries are the merest tools of the rich. The image of justice has slipped the bandage from one eye, and now uses her scales to weigh the bribes she receives. An ordinary citizen has no more prospect of fair treatment in our courts, contending with a millionaire, than a new-born infant would have of life in the den of a wolf."
"But," I replied, rather hotly, "I should appeal for justice to the public through the newspapers."
"The newspapers!" he said, and his face darkened as he spoke; "the newspapers are simply the hired mouthpieces of power; the devil's advocates of modern civilization; their influence is always at the service of the highest bidder; it is their duty to suppress or pervert the truth, and they do it thoroughly. They are paid to mislead the people under the guise of defending them. A century ago this thing began, and it has gone on, growing worse and worse, until now the people laugh at the opinions of the press, and doubt the truth even of its reports of occurrences."
"Can this be possible?" I said.
"Let me demonstrate it to you," he replied, and, stepping to the wall, he spoke quietly into a telephone tube, of which there were a number ranged upon the wall, and said:
"Give me the particulars of the whipping of Prince Cabano's coachman, this afternoon, at the south gate of Central Park."
Almost immediately a bell rang, and on the opposite wall, in What I had supposed to be a mirror, appeared these words:
From the Evening Guardian:
A HORRIBLE OUTRAGE!
HIGHWAY ROBBERY!--ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD!