May we not also be permitted to say from an observation of trial by jury in every county in North Carolina, that the average qualified juror, from town or county, selected according to law, "of good moral character and sufficient intelligence" is as thoroughly capable of coming to a just and true verdict upon the evidence submitted to him as any man in any country. And while there is an occasional impatient criticism of a verdict, by the Judge, which generally he has no right to make, and while there is an occasional verdict which arouses the protest of some vigilant chanticleer of freedom and is answered from many neighboring throats, yet the thousand verdicts constantly being given which do satisfy the public soon swallow up the clamor over the one in the vast sea of content at the working of the system.

Of course it requires the nerve of a just and learned Judge to direct their deliberations and explain the law, but at the last it is the jury, and it alone, in this and many other States which must find the facts unbiased even by the opinion of the Judge.

To him whose province it is to administer the law in the courts, the responsibility is sufficient, and he does not covet, neither would he be able to bear, the additional burden in important cases of deciding the facts.

But the immense advantage of a jury trial does not occur to the ordinary critic of the system. Most of our readers have doubtless read in the American Law Review of May-June, 1899, Judge H. C. Caldwell's address before the Missouri Bar Association on "Trial by Judge and Jury." This old federal chancellor, whose arm was foreshortened as to injunctive relief, and whose foot was lengthened when he measured out the poor man's equity, pays a splendid tribute to the verdict-representing the sense of justice of the people, "And the immense justice of the people is almost as impersonal as the justice of God." We had almost said that it is only he who has spent his

young manhood in close and diligent study of the principles of the common law and who has traced the jury system from its hazy beginnings in the earliest courts of his ancestors who crossed the German ocean, that can truly appreciate this muniment of impartial justice, and that will never consent to exchange it for any other mode of judicially ascertaining the truth of a matter.

The Next Step in the Evolution of Punishments

BY WHITEHEAD KLUTTZ.

"I shall ask for the abolition of the penalty of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me."-Marquis de Lafayette.

It is not easy for the man who regards capital punishment as unjust and inexpedient to get a candid hearing. Prejudice and passion, the cuttle-fish that darken the waters, are not difficult to arouse. What is most needed is fairness. The condition precedent to an intelligent discussion and decision is a concession on the part of those who oppose the abolishment of death as a punishment for crime. They must concede to those who urge the reform just as much intelligence and public virtue, just as much reverence for law and order, just as much desire to find and do the right as they themselves lay claim to. They will in time learn everywhere, as they have already learned in many localities, that the friends of the reform appeal not to maudlin sentimentalism, but to justice and reason.

The question, has society, through its agents, the right to take human life, is fundamental. It stands at the threshold of the subject. "The right to take human life,” says Dr. Rush, "is the sole prerogative of Him who gave it. Human laws, therefore, are in rebellion against this prerogative when they transfer it to human hands." The

FOREWORD.-In what is here written, it is not claimed that the death punishment can expediently be abolished everywhere, at once, and for all crimes. The argument here made is general and of general application. To take an account of local conditions would unduly extend it. It is felt that in the American cotton States the problem is complicated by the presence of a semi-servile race. The principle is the thing-and the principle is right. Yet it must bide its time. Education and evolution rather than revolution are the means of its sure accomplishment. Law is the formally declared sense of the community. It works from within out. Without the sanction of the community consciousness there may be statutes-there cannot be law.

So if a man say to me, "North Carolina is not ready to abolish capital punishment," I reply, "Then so much the worse for North Carolina. Let us grow! At least, friend, might we not modify a penal code that denounces four capital crimes when the will of the community denounces death upon but one, and then usually outside the court house?"

strongest position is based on an analogy, not fictitious but real, between the individual and society. The right to do what is necessary for protection, for self-defence, is admittedly inherent in both. When the citizen steps over this line to become the aggressor, he is beyond his legal and moral right, and the taint of crime attaches to him. When the State commits the same transgression, is it not liable to the same indictment?

Suppose a case: Stone is violently assaulted by Williams. His person being in danger, Stone in the proper defence of it, knocks his assailant senseless. So far he has only exercised a natural right and is blameless. But now, raising his weapon, he brains his helpless antagonist. He is a murderer.

Behold the parallel! Society is assailed-a crime is committed. The assailant is caught, bound hand and foot, rendered incapable of doing further harm. Society has exercised the right of self-defence and imprisoned the criminal. Then, not in hot blood, but deliberately, the clearly drawn line which we call the right of self-protection is overstepped and the prisoner is killed. Society imitates its enemy. How can the conclusion be resisted that when it has done so, it is in the province of crime, guilty of murder? How can any but a fanatical stickler for the superceded lex talionis fail to see that a wrong is done?

The agitation for the abolishment of capital punishment is no new movement. Since the day when the eloquent voice of Cicero rang out in the Roman forum, denouncing the existence of the death punishment as "disgraceful to a freeman and a Roman citizen," there has been a daily growing army of devoted men and women who have labored for its abolishment. In the roll of great leaders, living and dead, who have striven for this cause, are found the names of such men as Lord Broughman, Lafayette, John Bright, Benjamin Franklin, Horace Greeley, John D. Long, and Thomas B. Reed.

The substitution of life imprisonment for capital punishment has been made in Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Colorado, and in a number of European and South American States. Consequently, what was an experiment and a theory is now a demonstrated fact. The evidence in regard to the success of the change wherever the substitution has been given a fair trial is simply overwhelming. Every person who is interested in this very important phase of a great question should read the report of Hon. N. M. Curtis to the Fifty-fourth Congress. The statistics contained in the document are full, accurate and official. They clearly demonstrate that practically everywhere that the change has been made, it has been with the most perfect safety and the greatest advantage. Nowhere has there been any increase in the murders since the abolition of the death penalty; and in Michigan, Rhode Island, Portugal, Bombay, Holland, and elsewhere, there has been a very large decrease.

In spite of such facts and such results there still remains with the majority of mankind a violent and unreasonable prejudice, as the writer thinks, against the abandonment of death as a punishment for crime. This prejudice exists largely among those who have never given the question a moment's calm thought. It is a problem which must be approached in the spirit of modern investigation, untrammelled by prejudice of the past. If the advocates of the change are to win their fight, it must be an appeal to reason as well as to humanity. Such an appeal to such a tribunal as the American people will not always be in vain.

An eminent writer has said, that every social institution must abide the issue of two questions: Is it just? Is it expedient? Let us try the punishment of death by these tests, first, as to its justice.

In almost every case capital punishment is unjust in that it falls with undue severity upon the innocent family