“Certainly; you are right as to particular sets of cases, but wrong as to others. In a commercial town like this, the feeling is against government in all cases connected with the collection of the revenue, I admit; and you will see that the fact makes against the trial by jury in another form, since a judge ought to be strictly impartial; above all prejudice whatever.” “But, uncle, a judge and a jury are surely very different things,” cried Sarah, secretly impelled to come to Michael’s rescue, though she scarce knew anything of the merits of the subject. “Quite right, my dear,” the uncle answered, nodding his head kindly, casting a glance at his niece that caused her to blush under the consciousness of being fully understood in her motives, if not in her remark. “Most profoundly right; a judge and a juror ought to be very different things. What I most complain of is the fact that the jurors are fast becoming judges. Nay, by George, they are getting to be legislators, making the law as well as interpreting it. How often does it happen, now-a-days, that the court tell the jury that such is the law, and the jury comes in with a verdict which tells the court that such is _not_ the law? This is an every-day occurrence, in the actual state of public opinion.” “But the court will order a new trial, if the verdict is against law and evidence,” said Michael, determined that Sarah should be sustained. “Ay, and another jury will be quite likely to sustain the old one. No—no—the trial by jury is no more a palladium of our liberties, than the Constitution of the United States.” “Who, or what is, then, sir?” demanded Jack. “God! Yes, the Deity, in his Divine Providence; if anything is to save us. It may not be his pleasure to let us perish, for it would seem that some great plan for the advancement of civilization is going on, and it may be a part of it to make us important agents. All things regarded, I am much inclined to believe such is the fact. But, did the result depend on us, miserable instruments in the Almighty hands as we are, woeful would be the end!” “You do not look at things _couleur de rose_, Uncle Tom,” Sarah smilingly observed. “Because I am not a young lady of twenty, who is well satisfied with herself and her advantages. There is but one character for which I have a greater contempt than that of a senseless grumbler, who regards all things _à tort et à travers_, and who cries, there is nothing good in the world.” “And what is the exception, sir?” “The man who is puffed up with conceit, and fancies all around him perfection, when so much of it is the reverse; who ever shouts ‘liberty,’ in the midst of the direst oppression.” “But direst oppression is certainly no term to be applied to anything in New York!” “You think not? What would you say to a state of society in which the law is available to one class of citizens only, in the way of compulsion, and not at all, in the way of protection?”