Not that the matter, after all, is particularly important to most of us, but laws which exist only to be broken create a disrespect and disregard for law which may ultimately be dangerous. It would be perfectly simple for the legislature to say that a citizen _might_ be arrested under circumstances tending to cause a reasonable suspicion, even if he had not committed a crime, and it would be quite easy to pass a statute providing that the commissioner of police might “mug” and measure all criminals immediately after conviction. As it is, the prison authorities won’t let him, so he has to do it while he has the opportunity. It must be admitted that this is rather hard on the innocent, but they now have to suffer with the guilty for the sins of an indolent and uninterested legislature. Moreover, if such a right of arrest were proposed, some wiseacre or politician would probably rise up and denounce the suggestion as the first step in the direction of a military dictatorship. Thus, we shall undoubtedly fare happily on in the blissful belief that our personal liberties are the subject of the most solicitous and zealous care on the part of the authorities, guaranteed to us under a government which is not of men but of laws, until one of us happens to be arrested (by mistake, of course) and learns by sad experience the practical methods of the police in dealing with criminals and the agreeable but deceptive character of the pleasant fiction of the presumption of innocence. CHAPTER II PREPARING A CRIMINAL CASE FOR TRIAL WHEN the prosecuting attorney in a great criminal trial arises to open the case to the impanelled jury, very few, if any, of them have the slightest conception of the enormous expenditure of time, thought, and labor which has gone into the preparation of the case and made possible his brief and easily delivered speech. For in this opening address of his there must be no flaw, since a single misstated or overstated fact may prejudice the jury against him and result in his defeat. Upon it also depends the jury’s first impression of the case and of the prosecutor himself—no inconsiderable factor in the result—and in a trial of importance its careful construction with due regard to what facts shall be omitted (in order to enhance their dramatic effect when ultimately proven) may well occupy the district attorney every evening for a week. But if the speech itself has involved study and travail, it is as nothing compared with the amount required by that most important feature of every criminal case—the selection of the jury.