“This is Mr. Morning’s state, I believe,” observed the doctor, after the laugh at his expense had subsided, and all sat dreamily looking away to the dimly-outlined mountains in the distance, “and we must be nearing the place of the wonderful gold deposit, with the results of which he is rapidly revolutionizing the world.” “You are right, sir,” said a bright-eyed, smooth-shaven, portly gentleman, of forty years of age, who occupied an adjoining seat. “It is Morning’s state in every sense of the word. He has made it—industrially, politically, and socially. His enterprise and money have constructed great reservoirs, and laced the land with irrigating canals, and changed its wastes into orchards, and its deserts into lawns. He is the idol of its people, as he ought to be, and his ideas are embodied in our constitution and laws. They are all the product of his thought, from marriage contract-laws to abolition of trial by jury.” “Abolition of trial by jury,” said Doctor Eustace. “Yes, sir; at least the jury is composed of judges, instead of men who don’t know the plaintiff from the defendant, and we have no Supreme Court.” “No jury, and no Supreme Court!” observed Miss Winters. “What a capital idea. I shall come here to practice.” “Well, miss, if you practice law here, and wish to patronize the twelve men in a box, or enjoy the luxury of an appeal, you must bring your case in the United States Court, or take it there. In our State courts we have dispensed with all that ancient rubbish.” “Rubbish!” exclaimed the doctor. “Even so,” rejoined the stranger. “The judicial system in vogue elsewhere than in Arizona is as much a relic of barbarism as slavery or polygamy. It is no more fitted to the wants and enlightenment of the age than the canal boat for traveling, or the flint lock musket for shooting pigeons. Suppose you wish to recover a piece of land from a jumper in California or Maine, and one side or the other demands a jury trial. Every good citizen who is busy shirks duty as a juryman. Every intelligent citizen who reads the newspapers forms an opinion and is excused. From the residue—which is sure to contain both fools and knaves—you get twelve clerks, mechanics, laborers, merchants, farmers, and idlers—none of whom have any training in untangling complicated propositions, weighing evidence, remembering principles of law and logic, and according to each fact its just and relative importance. “After these twelve men have listened to a muddle of testimony, objections, law papers, and speeches, concluding with bewildering instructions, which half of them fail to remember, and the other half fail to understand, they retire to the jury room and guess out a verdict. The losing party appeals, and, after wearisome delay, the Supreme Court decides that ‘someone has blundered,’ and, without attempting to correct the error by a proper judgment, sends the case back for another trial, another batch of blunders, and another appeal.”