“I can believe you, sir, from what I have seen of your practice. But principles and facts won’t answer in an age of the world when men are ruled by talk and prejudice. There is not a case of any magnitude tried, now-a-days, without paying proper attention to the jury. We are pretty well off, on the whole; and I am tolerably sanguine of a disagreement, though I fear an acquittal is quite out of the question.” “You rely on one or two particularly intelligent and disinterested men, ha! Timms?” “I rely on five or six particularly ignorant and heated partisans, on the contrary;—men who have been reading about the abolishing of capital punishments, and who in gin’ral, because they’ve got hold of some notions that have been worn out as far back as the times of the Cæsars, fancy themselves philosophers and the children of progress. The country is getting to be full of what I call donkeys and racers; the donkey is obstinate, and backs going up hill; while the racers will not only break their own necks, but those of their riders too, unless they hold up long before they reach their goal.” “I did not know, Timms, that you think so much on such subjects. To me, you have always appeared to be a purely working-man—no theorist.” “It is precisely because I am a man of action, and live in the world, and see things as they were meant to be seen, that I laugh at your theorists. Why, sir, this country, in my judgment, for the time being, could much better get along without preaching, than without hanging. I don’t say always; for there is no telling yet what is to be the upshot of preaching. It may turn out as many think; in which case human natur’ will undergo a change that will pretty much destroy our business. Such a state of things would be worse for the bar, ’Squire, than the Code, or the last fee-bill.” “I’m not so sure of that, Timms; there are few things worse than this infernal Code.” “Well, to my taste, the fee-bill is the most disagreeable of the two. A man can stand any sort of law, and any sort of practice; but he can’t stand any sort of pay. I hear the circuit is to be held by one of the new judges—a people’s man, altogether.” “You mean by that, I suppose, Timms, one of those who did not hold office under the old system? It is said that the new broom sweeps clean—it is fortunate ours has not brushed away all the old incumbents.” “No, that is to come; and come it will, as sure as the sun rises. We must have rotation on the bench, as well as in all other matters. You see, ’Squire, rotation is a sort of _claim_ with many men, who have no other. They fancy the earth to have been created on a sort of Jim Crow principle, because it turns round.” “That is it; and it explains the clamour that is made about it. But to return to this jury, Timms; on the whole, you like it, I should infer?” “Not too well, by any means. There are six or eight names on the list that I’m always glad to see; for they belong to men who are friendly to me——”