A Sage said to a Schoolboy, home for the holidays, "A contented mind is a continual feast." "Is it?" quoth young Hopeful, "I should rather say that a continual feast was a contented mind."
THE RETICENCE OF THE PRESS.
The American Press admires the reticence which the British Press has practised during the seventy odd days occupied in hearing one side of a cause which will be celebrated. The English Press also takes credit to itself for that reticence. It is, doubtless, exemplary. By not interfering with, we know how much it furthers, the administration of Justice. A trial such as the great lawsuit now pending, or any other in a British Court of Law, is determined, we all know, simply by the weight of evidence, in relation to which the minds of the jury are mere scales. The Counsel on either side respectively confine themselves to the production of true evidence each on behalf of his client, and the refutation of false evidence advanced for the opposite party. The Judge is the only person in Court who expresses any opinion on the case which could possibly influence the jury; his opinion being expressed under the obligation of strict impartiality. No barrister, whether counsel for the plaintiff or the defendant, ever attempts to bias their decision either by sophistry or appeals to their passions and prejudices. It is therefore highly necessary that the Press should abstain as strictly as it does from any explanation or argument with reference to a pending suit which, how sincerely soever meant to instruct, might possibly have the effect of misleading the jury sitting thereon.
If, indeed, Counsel were usually accustomed to employ the arts of oratory, and the dodges of dialectics, in order to make the worst appear the better cause in the eyes of twelve men more or less liable to be deceived and deluded, then, indeed, the reticence of a respectable and intelligent Press, in abstaining from any remarks capable of helping a jury to deliver a righteous verdict, would not perhaps be quite so purely advantageous as it is now.
Riddle for the Young Folks.
Why are the two letters at the tail the most sensible of all the Alphabet?—Because they are the Wise Head.
