Chapter XXV

_Justice.--Comparison Favourable to America.--Judicial
Procedure.--The Accused was Paid Cash.--A Criminal Hunt.--The
Juries and their Powers.--Slow Dealings of American
Justice.--False Philanthropy.--Twelve or Sixteen Minutes at
the Wrong End of a Rope.--A Savage Club Anecdote._

I have no intention of entertaining the reader on the subject of the judicial organisation in the United States. I refer him for that to the Tocquevilles of every country, to our own Tocqueville especially. I do not concern myself, in this volume, with American institutions, but simply with the ways and manners of the Americans.

* * * * *

I had just returned from America, and was sitting in the smoking-room of the North-Western Hotel, Liverpool. I was chatting with an American, fellow-passenger on the Atlantic voyage, while admiring St. George's Hall, which stands opposite. This magnificent building, which serves as a Court of Justice, is the finest modern edifice of the English provinces.

All at once we heard a blast of trumpets. A crowd rushed towards the Hall, and lined the flight of steps leading to the grand entrance. Heralds and lacqueys, all bedizened with scarlet and gold, presently descended the steps, followed by police officers. Several carriages then drew up.

From one of these, there alighted a man arrayed in a scarlet robe and ermine tippet, and wearing a powdered wig. The scarlet robe, followed by the _cortege_ which had formed, solemnly mounted the steps between the crowd, which stood gazing with open-mouthed and wide-eyed admiration.

"What show is there going on opposite?" asked the American, in the easy-going tone that so distinguishes the Yankee.

He was an "Innocent abroad."

"My dear sir," I said to him, "it is simply a judge going to try a thief or two. England honours her criminals with a great deal of parade, as you see."

My American was silent for a few minutes. He was probably adding up the salaries of the judge, the police officers, heralds and ushers, the lawyers' fees, the cost of the building, carriages, and show generally; and no doubt comparing the total with the pound or two stolen from his employer by a dishonest clerk, for whom all this grand representation was taking place.

Nothing is more simple than an American court of justice. Four walls innocent of decoration of any kind, a few plain chairs or benches. No uniforms, no robes, no wigs, no trumpets, no liveried ushers. The judge and the barristers are in black frock-coats. The ushers are not quite so well dressed as the barristers, and that is all.

As in England, the accused is not allowed speech. If he has questions to put, his counsel is at his side, and speaks for him. It is the counsel who examine and cross-examine the witnesses, and plead before the jury. The judge presides, and does nothing more.

The accused is provided with a chair in the middle of the room, almost in the midst of the public. Several times I was obliged to ask someone present: "Which of all those people is the prisoner?"

An American trial is completely shorn of parade. It is not, as in England, and especially in France, a grand spectacular performance, but simply a man appearing before his townsmen to plead guilty to a misdeed or to prove his innocence of it--it is a family wash, if I may be allowed the expression.

The simplicity of the procedure is such that one day, after having been introduced to a presiding judge, I was asked by him to take a seat at his side, so as to hear and see better all that went on.

Simplicity goes further still occasionally.

An accused, having one day got up and begun to apostrophise his judge in anything but polite terms, that representative of justice left his seat, took off his coat, made for the man, and gave him a sound drubbing; then, resuming his seat, he said to the lawyers:

"The incident, which has just occurred, has nothing to do with the case that we have to consider. As a man, I have given him a thrashing. As judge, I will now proceed with his case; please, go on."

This magistrate, far from resenting the insults of the accused, thought no more of them, after having paid the man cash in this way. He summed up in most impartial fashion, and the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty."

* * * * *

In France, we pay a legion--a host rather--of judges and police officers, to look after our security, and never should we dream of helping them in the exercise of their functions. If a crime remain wrapped in mystery, we say to ourselves: "I pay the police, it is for them to discover the criminal; it is not my business, and, besides, the profession of detective is not in my line."

It is not the same in the United States. There public safety concerns everyone.

The population of a town feels dishonoured by the perpetration of a crime in their midst. Everyone is on the alert to catch the criminal; men organise themselves into bands to search the country round. An assassin is tracked in the woods with bloodhounds and guns, like a wild beast; if he is discovered, and offers a very obstinate resistance, a bullet is lodged in his body, and the hunters go tranquilly home again.

* * * * *

When a crime has produced a violent sensation in a town and it is feared the criminal may not be judged there with impartiality, he is taken to a distance, out of the way of prejudices, to be tried.

This is a curious contrast with lynch law, of which I shall speak in another chapter.

* * * * *

Something else to admire.

In England and France, a jury only pronounces upon the innocence or guilt of the accused. In England, a jury has not even, as it has in France, the right to admit extenuating circumstances. English and French juries are often astounded when they hear the judge pronounce sentence. Their intention was to get the accused sent to prison for a year or two, and the judge gives him, perhaps, ten years' penal servitude.

In cases of assassination in England, the clerk of the court says to the jury, at the end of their sitting:

"Do you find the prisoner guilty of wilful murder?"

"Certainly he is guilty of killing, but in a moment of jealousy, perhaps. His wife deceived him, and he killed the wretch who dishonoured him."

"You have nothing to do with all that," the English jury is told; "you are merely to say whether the prisoner at the bar has done wilful murder."

And the jury, forced to say _Yes_, are obliged to send to the gibbet a man whom in their hearts they may respect. They are forced to condemn to death a miserable fellow-creature, maddened by misfortune, just as they do an assassin who has committed a long-planned murder of his neighbour for money.

The American juries not only decide the question of a prisoner's culpability or innocence, but they themselves pronounce sentence.

"We find," they say, "that the prisoner is guilty of such and such a crime in the first degree, or in the second degree, etc., and we therefore sentence him to such and such punishment."

* * * * *

Something which is much to be blamed is the procrastination of American justice. By going the right way to work, a condemned criminal may often succeed in getting his case to be tried again and again.

In cases of murder, what good can it do to keep a poor wretch, that it is decided to hang, in prison for a year or more? It is adding torture to death penalty.

If that were only all.

Jonathan is such a philanthropist that he with difficulty makes up his mind to execute a fellow-creature even legally. So, when he has kept a year in prison a criminal, whom he is at last forced to hang, he leads him to the scaffold, puts a rope round his neck, jerks him up in the air, and manages to take twelve or sixteen minutes dispatching him.

This is philanthropy with a vengeance, and it is to be hoped that execution by electricity, which has just been adopted by the Governor of New York State, will put an end to such sickening proceedings.

It is to be hoped, also, that the Americans will some day do better than that. I, for my part, do not doubt that they will abolish death sentences before very long. They are too intelligent not to understand that the death sentence deters no criminal, and this for a very simple reason. A crime is committed under the impulse of passion, or it has been premeditated. In the first case, the criminal never thinks of the punishment to come, he is blinded by passion; in the second, he always believes he has planned his crime in such a manner as not to be found out.

* * * * *

To lighten this rather lugubrious subject, I will terminate with a little anecdote, which has never seen the light, and which I think is too delightfully humorous and pathetic to be allowed to remain unpublished.

The scene was the smoking-room of the Savage Club.

A notorious criminal had been hanged in the morning. Several members of the club were talking of the affair, and each one described what his feelings would be if he were led to the scaffold to be hanged.

During this conversation, an actor, well known, but to whom managers, I scarcely know why, never entrust any but secondary parts, sat silent in an armchair, sending up long puffs of smoke soaring to the ceiling.

"Hello, there is N., who has not given his opinion," said one of the group, suddenly noticing the actor: "I say, N., tell us how you would feel if you were being led to the scaffold."

The actor raised his eyes to the ceiling and, after another puff at his cigar, said quietly:

"Well, boys, I should feel that at last I was trusted with a leading part."