“Wilt thou behold me sinking in my woes,
And wilt thou not reach out a friendly arm,
To raise one from amidst this plunge of sorrow?”
Addison.
“Call the names of the jurors, Mr. Clerk,” said the judge. “Mr. Sheriff, I do not see the prisoner in her place.”
This produced a stir. The jurors were called, and answered to their names; and shortly after, Mary Monson appeared. The last was accompanied by the ladies, who might now be said to belong to her party, though no one but herself and Marie Moulin came within the bar.
There was profound stillness in the hall, for it was felt that now the issue of life or death was actually approaching. Mary Monson gazed, not with disquietude but interest, at the twelve men who were to decide on her innocence or guilt—men of habits and opinions so different from her own—men so obnoxious to prejudices against those whom the accidents of life had made objects of envy or hatred—men too much occupied with the cares of existence to penetrate the arcana of thought, and who consequently held their opinions at the mercy of others—men unskilled, because without practice, in the very solemn and important office now imposed on them by the law—men who might indeed be trusted, so long as they would defer to the court and reason, but who were terrible and dangerous, when they listened, as is too apt to be the case, to the suggestions of their own impulses, ignorance and prejudice. Yet these men were Mary Monson’s peers, in the eyes of the law—would have been so viewed and accepted in a case involving the feelings and practices of social castes, about which they knew absolutely nothing, or, what is worse than nothing, a very little through the medium of misrepresentation and mistaken conclusions.
It is the fashion to extol the institution of the jury. Our own experience, by no means trifling, as foreman, as suitor, and as a disinterested spectator, does not lead us to coincide in this opinion. A narrative of the corrupt, misguided, partial, prejudiced, or ignorant conduct that we have ourselves witnessed in these bodies, would make a legend of its own. The power that most misleads such men, is one unseen by themselves, half the time, and is consequently so much the more dangerous. The feelings of neighbourhood, political hostility, or party animosities, are among the commonest evils that justice has to encounter, when brought in contact with tribunals thus composed. Then come the feelings engendered by social castes, an inexhaustible source of evil passions. Mary Monson had been told of the risks she ran from that source; though she had also been told, and with great truth, that so much of the spirit of God still remains in the hearts and minds of men, as to render a majority of those who were to be the arbiters of her fate conscientious and careful in a capital case. Perhaps, as a rule, the singularity of his situation, with a man who finds himself, for the first time, sitting as a juror in a trial for a human life, is one of the most available correctives of his native tendencies to do evil.
“Mr. District Attorney, are you ready to proceed?” inquired the judge.
This functionary rose, bowed to the court and jury, and commenced his opening. His manner was unpretending, natural, and solemn. Although high talent and original thought are very rare in this country, as they are everywhere else, there is a vast fund of intellect of a secondary order, ever at the command of the public. The District Attorney of Duke’s was a living witness of this truth. He saw all within his reach clearly, and, possessing great experience, he did his duty, on this occasion, in a very creditable manner. No attempt was made to awaken prejudice of any sort against the accused. She was presented by the grand inquest, and it was his and their painful duty, including his honour on the bench, to investigate this matter, and make a solemn decision, on their oaths. Mary Monson was entitled to a fair hearing, to all the advantages that the lenity of the criminal law of a very humane state of society could afford, and “for God’s sake let her be acquitted should the State fail to establish her guilt!”