The District Attorney replied as follows: "If your honor please, I am happy to be able to announce that the government is ready to proceed with the trial. Before we proceed, however, sir, to impanel a jury, we desire to submit a motion to the court, which motion we have reduced to writing. With the permission of the court I will now proceed to read it to your honor. It is as follows:-- IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. UNITED STATES AGAINST JOHN H. SURRATT. Indictment, Murder. "And now, at this day, to wit, on the 10th day of June, A.D. 1867, come the United States and the said John H. Surratt, by their respective attorneys; and the jurors of the jury impanelled and summoned also come; and hereupon the said United States, by their attorney, challenge the array of the said panel, because he saith that the said jurors comprising said panel were not drawn according to law, and that the names from which said jurors were drawn were not selected according to law, wherefore he prays judgment, and that the said panel may be quashed." This motion, if your honor please, is sustained by an affidavit which I hold in my hand, and which, with the permission of your honor, I will now proceed to read. We think after this affidavit shall have been read it will be found unnecessary to introduce any oral testimony." The motion to quash this panel, it will be observed, rests on two allegations: first, that the names were not drawn according to law; and, second, that the names from which the jury had been drawn were not selected according to law. These allegations were fully sustained by the affidavit of Samuel E. Douglas, register of Washington City, which was presented and read by the District Attorney, and more fully afterwards, upon his oral examination. The law governing the question was found in an act of Congress of June 16th, 1862, entitled, "An act providing for the selection of jurors to serve in the several courts of the District of Columbia." Under the provisions of this act the register of the city of Washington, the clerk of the city of Georgetown, and the clerk of the levy court of the county of Washington, District of Columbia, was each required to make out a list of names of persons deemed by him to be most suitable for the duty of jurors, having respect to the exemptions and qualifications specified in the act.