This is only the long panel. Now the jury has to be formed. To
twenty names the prisoner is entitled to object from caprice, and Mr.
O'Laugher is not the man to give up one of the twenty. Then he can
object to as many more as he chooses, on showing cause, and you may
be sure Mr. O'Laugher has a great many causes to show. One man has
lived near young Macdermot all his life, has been a friend of his,
must have formed an opinion on the case, and is therefore not fit:
another man has been his enemy, and is therefore not fit; a third
man used to drive with Captain Ussher twice a week; a fourth lived
in Mohill; a fifth at Drumsna; a sixth did not live in the county
at all; a seventh had not a house of his own, and so on. Why, it
appeared there was not a proper juror in the county! On all these
objections Mr. O'Laugher was beaten; and as he was beaten on each, he
indefatigably prepared for the next.
Then the jurors themselves objected. They unblushingly declared
themselves unfit;--asserted that they could not depend upon
themselves to give a true verdict, and assured the judge that their
minds would be improperly biassed by circumstances on one side or the
other. What atrocious characters!--what self-condemned miscreants!
Why does not the judge instantly, with that stern look he knows
so well how to assume, turn them out of court, bid them make way
for honest men, and send them home, disgraced for ever, to their
sorrowing families? Does he do so? No indeed! he picks his teeth
while Mr. Allewinde assures this recusant or the other that he has no
doubt but that he will make a most eligible juror; and at last, with
considerable delay, a little trial takes place in each case, and two
other jurymen have to decide on their oaths, whether Terence Murphy
stands indifferent between our Lord and Sovereign the King and the
prisoner at the bar; and to enable them to decide, they have to hear
all the evidence in the case.
The twelve are at last sworn--the proper officer repeating in each
case those awful words, "Juror, look upon the prisoner. Prisoner,
look upon the juror. You shall well and truly try, and true
deliverance make, between our Lord and Sovereign the King and the
prisoner at the bar--so help you God!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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