ryman was
convicted, they would vote on the other side.

But worst of all is the difficulty of finding an _honest_ jury--a fact
generally acknowledged. Politics, private animosities, bribery, all
have their influence to defeat the ends of justice, and it argues
strongly against the moral standard of a nation that such should be the
case; but that it is so is undoubted. [See Note 1.] The truth is that
the juries, have no respect for the judges, however respectable they may
be, and as many of them really are. The feeling "I'm as good as he"
operates everywhere. There is no shutting up a jury and starving them
out as with us; no citizen, "free and enlightened, aged twenty-one,
white," would submit to such an invasion of his rights. Captain
Hamilton observes:--

"It was not without astonishment, I confess, that I remarked that
three-fourths of the jury-men were engaged in eating bread and cheese,
and that the foreman actually announced the verdict with his mouth full,
ejecting the disjointed syllables during the intervals of mastication!
In truth, an American seems to look on a judge exactly as he does on a
carpenter or coppersmith; and it never occurs to him, that an
administrator of justice is entitled to greater respect than a
constructor of brass knockers, or the sheather of a ship's bottom. The
judge and the brazier are paid equally for their work; and Jonathan
firmly believes that, while he has money in his pocket, there is no risk
of suffering from the want either of law or warming pans."

One most notorious case of bribery, I can vouch for, as I am acquainted
with the two parties, one of whom purchased the snuff-box in which the
other enclosed the notes and presented to the jurymen. A gentleman at
New York of the name of Stoughton, had a quarrel with another of the
name of Goodwin: the latter followed the former down the street, and
murdered him in open day by passing a small sword through his body. The
case was as clear as a case could be, but there is a great dislike to
capital punishment in America, and particularly was there in this
instance, as the criminal was of good family and extensive connections.
It was ascertained that all the jury except two intended to acquit the
prisoner upon some pretended want of evidence, but that these two had
determined that the law should take its course, and were quite
inexorable. Before the jury retired to consult upon the verdict, it was
determined by the friends