We are aware that these are not the colours in which it is the fashion to delineate the venerable and much vaunted institution of the jury; certainly a most efficient agent in curtailing the power of a prince; but just as certainly a most irresponsible, vague, and quite often an unprincipled means of administering the law, when men are not urged to the desire of doing right by political pressure from without, and are left to the perverse and free workings of a very evil nature. We represent things as we believe them to exist, knowing that scarce a case of magnitude occurs in which the ministers of corruption are not at work among the jurors, or a verdict rendered in which the fingers of the Father of Lies might not be traced, were the veil removed, and the facts exposed to the light of day. It is true, that in trials for life, the persecution of the prisoner rarely takes so direct a form as has been represented in the case of Mary Monson; but the press and the tongue do an incalculable amount of evil, even in such cases; all the ancient safeguards of the law having been either directly removed by ill-considered legislation, or rendered dead-letters by the “ways of the hour.” It was regarded as exceedingly good progress to get two jurors into the box, in a capital case, in the first half-hour. His Honour had evidently resigned himself to a twenty-four hours’ job; and great was his satisfaction when he saw Wattles and Trueman safely seated on their hard and uncomfortable seats; for it would almost seem that discomfort has been brought into the court-houses as a sort of auxiliary to the old practice of starving a jury into a verdict. Whether it was owing to a suspicion, on the part of Timms, of the truth in regard to his being over-reached in the case of Trueman, or to some other cause, he raised no objections to either of the six jurors next called. His moderation was imitated by Williams. Then followed two peremptory challenges; one in behalf of the prisoner, and one in behalf of the people, as it is termed. This was getting on so much better than everybody expected, that all were in good humour; and it is not exceeding the truth if we add, in a slight degree more disposed to view the prisoner and her case with favour. On such trifles do human decisions very often depend. All this time, fully an hour, did Mary Monson sit in resigned submission to her fate, composed, attentive, and singularly lady-like. The spectators were greatly divided in their private speculations on her guilt or innocence. Some saw in her quiet manner, curious interest in the proceedings, and unchanging colour, proofs not only of a hardened conscience, but of an experience in scenes similar to that in which she was now engaged; overlooking all the probabilities, to indulge in conjectures so severe against one so young. “Well, gentlemen,” cried the judge, “time is precious. Let us proceed.”