for questioning witnesses who could not make their statements in English. It is very seldom that a group of twenty-three New Yorkers does not include men who are conversant with German, French and Italian. In a city which contains one million Jews, we are also often able to secure from a juror the service of Yiddish. I have been able myself to manage inquiries in German when I was doubtful of the trustworthiness of the interpreter, and I always take pains in any case to check off the accuracy of the interpreter's reports in German and in French. I was puzzled once, however, with a language that was outside of the abilities of either the jury or of the court interpreters. A case was brought to us in which the person under charges and all the witnesses were reported as Chaldeans, that is to say they came from the lower Tigris. No gentleman on the jury would undertake Chaldean, and the several official interpreters gave up the task at once. I adjourned the case and sent to the police captain of the precinct where the Chaldean colony was situated, asking him to send up to the jury room a Chaldean who could speak English and for whose trustworthiness he could vouch. An hour later, my Chaldean citizen appeared and took charge of the case. I signed the indictment in due course and I only hope that it was the right person who was presented for trial. The Chaldean citizen, with his service first in the grand jury room and a fortnight later in court, was in position to clear off any old score that he might have had against a fellow countryman.

The time of a grand jury which has not been drawn for any special emergency is taken up chiefly with the routine business that comes in through the office of the district attorney. The complaints upon which the jury acts are in a majority of cases shaped before the magistrate or police justice. The district attorney takes note of the witnesses who have given testimony, or whose names have been specified in the proceedings before the magistrate, and he has these witnesses subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury. The responsibility rests upon the office of the district attorney of selecting and shaping the cases to be considered by the grand jury in such manner that witnesses shall not be called upon to give their time for more than the one day, usually the one morning. There are too many instances, however, owing either to incorrect calculation as to the time required for an individual case, or to heedlessness in which witnesses are called upon to sit in the witness room several

days in succession before their testimony can be taken. A careful foreman will take pains from day to day to make a personal examination of the persons that are waiting in the witness room and will himself take action to prevent as far as possible the hardship of needless detentions. A foreman will sometimes hold a jury for fifteen or thirty minutes after the usual time of adjournment rather than to subject to a call for another day witnesses who have passed their whole morning in the witness room. The foreman will take pains to assure himself through reports from the office of the district attorney that the cases shall not be presented in the chronological order, but in the order of their actual urgency, and the urgent cases are, of course, those in which the persons under charges are also under arrest, and those in which the detention of witnesses (for instance, women with babies) involves hardships. The bail cases should always be held over until the jail cases have been disposed of.

Attention should also be given to securing promptly the evidence of witnesses who are in the house of detention, or who, not being residents of the city, have been held under subpoenas, when they want to get away to their homes or on their own business. It is sometimes advisable to take testimony from such witnesses in advance of the time when the district attorney is prepared to shape the case for final consideration. It is only necessary when the case finally comes up for completion, either to have the stenographer read the testimony given a day or two back, or for the foreman to recall to the jurors the substance of the same. Whenever the urgent jail cases, and the most important of the bail cases have been disposed of, so that there are no arrears on the calendar, the jury is free to give attention to the other division of its duties, namely, the inspection of city institutions or an investigation into the work of city officials and the management of city departments.

The foreman sometimes finds it desirable, for this purpose, to arrange for a personal investigation of city institutions, such as the Tombs, the prison and asylums on Blackwell's and Ward's Islands, etc. It is sometimes wise to utilize for such investigations the entire body of the jury, while occasionally for some special investigation time can be saved by detailing one or more sub-committees upon whose report the jury can take action. Such investigations are sometimes made under the instructions of the court, but are often undertaken at the initiative of the jury itself. It is the duty

of any individual juror to bring to the attention of the body any abuses of which he has personal knowledge, or which have been brought to his attention by responsible citizens, and if the time of the session permits, the jury will take prompt action on such a complaint. A juror bringing into the jury a complaint or grievance of which he has personal knowledge will be sworn as a witness. From time to time, as before mentioned, a jury is appointed with instructions in regard to specific investigations, and such a jury is freed from the routine business of jail cases or of bail cases.

A number of years back, I served as foreman of a jury which sat for five months, and which was charged with the duty of investigating the management of certain of the city departments. It was at the time when the organization known as the county democracy was under the direction of leaders like Judge Henry R. Beekman, who were endeavoring to overthrow the control by the Tammany leaders of the Democratic votes of the city. Among the men who were active in the county democracy was Hubert O. Thompson, who during the period in question secured office as head of the department of public works. My relations with Thompson in the committee rooms of the county democracy became somewhat strained when as foreman of the grand jury, I found occasion to take proceedings against his management of the public works. It was under Thompson that the city's money was squandered in the county court house, and it was chiefly as a result of malfeasance shown in connection with the county court house contracts that we finally found it necessary to frame an indictment against him. He skipped his bail shortly after and fled to the West Indies, and the committee rooms of the county democracy lost the value of the service of this particular reformer.

I may mention here as an illustration of the kind of evidence that was brought out in the history of the court house, the record of the contracts for painting the inside of the building. Thompson was under obligation to put up for competitive bidding all contracts for work amounting to more than $1,000. He divided up the painting surface into sections so that the cost of each section need not exceed $1,000. He went through the form of taking competing bids and awarded the contract for section number one to a pal of his own whose bid as recorded proved to be substantially lower than that of his competitors. The work on this section, including the

charge for the scaffolding, was in fact done below cost. The second and the remaining sections were treated in the same manner, but in each case the other bidders found it necessary of course to include a charge for their scaffolding. The canny friend of Thompson whose scaffolding had been more than paid for in the compensation for sections one and two, was able to make a lower price for all the succeeding sections than was possible for his rivals, but even with this low price he got paid for his scaffolding almost as many times as there were sections in the building. It is not surprising that at the end of his operations in the court house he was willing to paint the commissioner's house without any charge.

The grand jurors find themselves not infrequently in doubt in regard to the credibility of a witness. The witness does not, at least in these preliminary proceedings, have to stand any crossexamination, and the jury should, of course, guard itself against the risk of basing an indictment upon evidence that does not impress them either as coming from a responsible person, or as being fairly well confirmed by corroboratory statements. I remember one case during the Thompson investigation in which an ex-employee of the department gave evidence which was decidedly important if true. I found after the witness had left the room that a number of the jurors had doubts as to his veracity. I noticed that the man wore a grand army button, and I said, "I think I can check the man's general truthfulness." I called him back and inquired about his army service.

"Where were you?"

"Chiefly in Virginia, sir."

"What battles were you in?"

"Well, sir, I was at Bull's Bluff, and in the battles of the peninsula, and all round."

"Who commanded at Bull's Bluff," I asked.

"Well, sir, Colonel Stone thought he commanded, but the gentleman on the other side did most of the commanding that day." It was evident to me that the fellow had been at Bull's Bluff, while his answer showed a capacity for discrimination and judgment that strengthened my belief in his testimony.

The jury depends for its legal advice upon the office of the district attorney, although it is also at liberty to make application for any special counsel to the judge of the court in which it has been

impanelled. It is the practice of the district attorney to place at the disposal of the grand jury of the month one of his assistants who takes charge of routine business. In case, however, the month brings up cases varying in character, or if in the arrangement of the work of the office, the preliminary shaping of cases has been divided between several assistants, the jury may have a different legal adviser from day to day, or from hour to hour. The purpose is that as far as possible the case shall be shaped for the grand jury by the assistant who will have the personal responsibility for its management in the trial later. It is for the jury, and as a matter of routine for the foreman, to decide whether he will retain in his own hands the questioning of the witnesses or will ask the assistant district attorney to take charge of the matter. With hardly an exception, a suggestion on the part of the district attorney or his assistant that, having full knowledge of the history of the case, he can manage the questioning more effectively and with some saving of time, is at once accepted by the foreman. The foreman may, however, even then find it desirable, in order to be sure that the matter has been fully presented to the jury, to supplement the questions asked by the district attorney.

I had the opportunity of utilizing the grand jury for the defense of the reputation of my old commander, General Grant. The general had thought himself fortunate in being able to arrange to place his two sons in Wall street in association with a clever but unscrupulous financier, Ferdinand Ward, who was known at that time as "The young Napoleon of finance." In the firm of Grant and Ward thus constituted, the general himself became a special partner with an investment that represented practically all of his savings. The new firm carried on business for a year or two, and secured by subscriptions from various citizens, Wall street men and others, the use of a large amount of money for "investment" in a series of mythical "contracts." Ward represented to the investors that, through the influence of his special partner, the firm had been given certain special advantages for securing government contracts, but that it was, of course, not possible under the circumstances, to specify what the contracts were. The money thus secured was thrown away in South American speculations, and when the firm stopped business, the assets were practically nil.

I found that the city had money on deposit with the Marine