THURSDAY March 12, 1903. Nelson Evening Mail THE ONUS OF CITIZENSHIP.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 48, 12 March 1903, Page 2

THURSDAY March 12, 1903. Nelson Evening Mail THE ONUS OF CITIZENSHIP.

DUTIES & PRIVtLEjGES. IT hardly needly needed Mr Justice Denniston's unconscious endorsement yesterday of Dogberry's verdict that the law is a "hass," for the fact has been patent throughout the ages, The especial asininity to which Mr Justice Denniston alluded was that, while the desire and intention of trial bv jury is to secure tho attendance on juries of the most active and intelligent of tho community, the iramers of the law take very good care to give a good proportion of that very class an opportunity of escaping service as jurymen. That is to say, Volunteers and Firemen, by special provision, are entitled to exemption, and this privilege was availed of at the present session ol the Supreme Court by some business men to escape the exercise of what is by constitution another privilege. As a result a few names were called • the privilege of membership of I Volunteer companies aud tho Eire I Brigade was put forward as the ' excuse for non-performance of the other privilege of serving as " good men and true " on the jury ; and the Court was put to a few minutes' delay in calling other porsons not so privileged to avoid a privilege.

His Honor, in his comments, said that all the members of the community who showed public spirit and took up other public duties were exempted from service on the jury. These were exactly the class of men who should be secured to attend to the most important duty a citizen was called upon to perform, the J administration of justice, and obvi- j oualy his Honor, in administering I the law, did 30 under protest. The '

Judgo proceeded to point out that after the exemptions were allowed there would hi only 26 jurymen present— not a sufficient number to permit of the empanelment of two juries should there be challenges, and he suggested that instead of 36 urymen being summoned 48 should be summoned in the fnture. * ♦ * * His Honor naturally views this jury question through merely judicial spectacles, and is obviously quite out of touch with the standpoint of the public, especially the business public. By his own showing) it is surely simple fairness that men wh,o show public spirit by taking up other public duties such as attending to fire prevention ana defence should not for that very reason be burdened witjh all the responsibilities of citizenship while those who da not take interest in public affairs should escape all duties except such as may be imposed upon them by law. It is all very well to prate about jury-service being the most important duty a citizen can perform ; but it is a wellknown fact, frequently complained about, that the machinery of the Court as applied to the summoning of juries is often a mere burdensome and annoying farce. In a crimefree city such, as Nelson at least, juries are often summoned for nothing at all. They have to come more or less long distances, waste time in kicking their heels at the

Court, and find that that they are a sort of legal gigantic Nasmytli hammer to crush one or two poor little butterflies. At three Assizes out of four here the juries, both Grand and "Petty"— as His Honor termed the Common Jury yesterday—have to spend a couple of hours at the Court merely to hear a few platitudes from the Bench and go home again. These men have often had to leave farms distant from the city in the midst of important and urgent agricultural operations dependent for success on the whims of the weather, and businesses in the city which, by the naphazard summoning of two or more members of the one firm or staff of employees, have been temporarily but completely dislocated. Some of these men have had to postpone urgent journeys, re-arrange their itinerary, curtail their business or pleasure trips, merely to take part in the veriest farce, on the off chance of their services as jurymen being required on the .same principle a.s the hen starved to death under cover lest by going into the open the skies might fall on and overwhelm her.

• • ♦ Tlien His Honor again* unconsciously accentuated the arguments against his own contention, by alluding yesterday to the so-called Common Jury by the legal term of "Petty Jury," as in contradistinction to the so-called "Gran'd Jury," that survival as a modern oj.erabouffe of an ancient safeguard of liberty and the law. Of course ''petty'' does not mean insignificant in this connection ; but how is the lay difference between "Grand" and "Petty" to be explained philologieally to the average juryman, who ■is as proud as a , dog with a brass tail if he be summoned to the "Grand Jury," and correspondingly humiliated if he be called to the "Common Jury," and tlien told Hut he j.s " petty ? " The very existence of i] ie farcical custom of a "-Grand Jury" creates a kind of artificial social differentiation long ago abolished in Jlieso lands, and one consequence is that citizens do not regard the coinpul■?m"J°,; sm ' e °" ihe "Common" or Iftt/y Jury as a privilege worth losing time or money for * * * » Finally, the chief reason why citizens have almost ceased to regard jury service as a privilege and to consider it a nuisance is tl ia t in the smaller centres such as Nelson is niled by red-tape rather than hv cTiuit'V Sei ; Se i, At the P??«e»t do,P *, ° un tllCre is work to be tec Zl Ws i ' U H eS> . Bho " Id there 'away fmr the i??*,* 1 ? '» it any wo,Xf Til ""* " 0 onavailing themselvS f J > llf)ec| in