second offense, and the fact of such conviction or his having been incarcerated in the penitentiary, workhouse or bridewell, may be proven like any fact not of record either by the witness himself or any other witness cognizant of such conviction, as impeaching testimony or by any other competent evidence." The case of Bartholomew v. The People, 104 Ill. 607, is a most perfect illustration of the necessity of some such provision as we have above set forth. In that case the court held, contrary to what they did in the case of Chase v. The People, 40 Ill. 355, that the presence of the defendant in the penitentiary even, could not be shown, but that before this matter could be even gone into, the State must show a conviction, and in order to a conviction they must produce a full and complete record of the court that convicted him, or an authenticated copy thereof, including the caption, the indictment by the grand jury, the return of the indictment into court, the arraignment of the defendant, his plea, his trial, verdict, conviction, sentence and judgment. We wonder that they did not require the production of the witnesses, and the presence of the court and jury in order to establish the identity and remove all possibility of doubt. The statement of this case will in our judgment show the absurdity of the present practice, and will, moreover, account for the reason why it is that prosecutions do not oftener take place in the case of old offenders under the habitual criminal act.

The next thing that we would do would be to amend Sec. 110 of the criminal code, so that in all cases of larceny, burglary, embezzlement, or any other crime against a corporation its existence may be proved by general reputation.

CHALLENGING JURORS FOR READING NEWSPAPERS.-Sec. 14 of the jury law, which enumerates the cause of challenge should be amended by striking out the words "about the truth of which he has expressed no opinion" in the latter part of the section, so that it shall read as follows: "That in the trial of any criminal cause, the fact that a person, called as a juror, has formed an opinion or impression based on rumor, or upon newspaper statement, shall not disqualify him to serve as a juror in such case, if he shall, upon oath, state that he believes he

can fairly and impartially render a verdict therein, in accordance with the law and the evidence, and the court shall be satisfied with the truth of such statement." The words "about the truth of which he has expressed no opinion" are found in practice to be nothing but a source of trouble and confusion, and add nothing whatever to the sanctity of conscience nor the security of defendant's rights.

They are found in no other statute upon the subject that we are aware of, and should be stricken out. It is not necessary that a juror should be a saint or an angel, and all that any one charged with a crime can demand is to be tried by jurors as fair and impartial as the lot of humanity allows. Every body that is not an idiot reads the newspaper, and may form an impression about anything he reads, but if a man can swear on his oath that he has no fixed opinion, and has no prejudice or bias, and that whatever he had read would not influence and control his judgment against the evidence produced at the trial, and he could go into the jury box and render a verdict according to the facts as given on the trial, without regard to what he had heard or read before, and that he could fairly and impartially judge the case according to the law and evidence, ought to be regarded as a competent juror, anywhere and everywhere. (Wilson v. The People, 94 Ill., 305-6; Plummer v. The People, 74 Ill., 366; Abbot v. The People, 86 N. Y., 465.)

In no case should it be a ground of error sufficient to reverse a case because counsel are restricted in their examination of jurors. This matter should above all things, be within the discretion of the court.

In no State in the American Union, neither in Canada nor England, nor anywhere else on earth, is there such latitude allowed and such an examination into the life and times and into the mental, moral, physical and metaphysical condition of jurors, as in this State.

Intelligence in jurors should not be regarded as a disqualification, but yet that is the ruling in criminal cases.

No better illustration can be given than this: A shrewd criminal lawyer, who was in great fear of obtaining a juror

who had a fixed opinion, after spending some time in interrogating him upon every subject he could think of, proceeded as follows:

Counsel:-Are you a member of any church?

Juror:-No.

Counsel:-Do you drink?

Juror: Yes, when I am dry.

Counsel:-Would you convict a man on doubtful and unsatisfactory evidence?

Juror:-Yes.

Counsel:-Would you guess a man into the penitentiary? Juror:-Yes.

Counsel:-Suppose the evidence is equally balanced, what then would you do?

Juror:-Balance it.

Counsel:-Have you fixed an opinion about the merits of this case?

Juror:-No.

Counsel:-Have you any fixed opinion about anything?
Juror:-No.

Counsel:-Is your mind so porous that it can leach out all the facts, memory, impression and sense of justice?

Juror:-It can.

Counsel:-Would you acknowledge on due evidence that you were not yourself, but somebody else?

Juror:-I would.

Counsel:-Are you sure, without due legal proof, that it is I who am speaking to you now?

Juror:-I am not.

Counsel:-You assume that this is the year 1888, A. D. but are open to the conviction, on due and sufficient evidence, that it may be 1882 B. C., are you not?

Juror:-I am.

Counsel:-You are of the masculine gender?
Juror:-I am.

Counsel:-But, on due and sufficient evidence being produced, you would, even in this respect, be willing to admit you might be mistaken?

Juror:-I might.

Counsel:-Swear this gentleman. He is the juror we long have sought, and mourned because we found him not.

This is the model juror of the period, made so by the highest tribunals in the land; and any nisi prius judge who holds otherwise will find himself in error.

The récent case of the People v. Spies and others, which was taken to the United States Supreme Court and which is reported in volume 123 of that court, decides expressly that the ruling of the trial court which held that "it is not a test question whether the juror will have the opinion which he has formed from the newspapers changed by the evidence, but whether the verdict will be based only upon the account which may be here given by witnesses under oath" was correct and that such a ruling did not, and such an interpretation of the statute did not deprive the persons accused, of a right to trial by an impartial jury and was not repugnant to either the constitution of this State or the constitution of the United States, and further that carrying into effect a sentence of conviction in accordance with the verdict of the jury, did not deprive the persons of their lives without due process of law.

We have been making law pretty fast during the last few years and if we were to have one more anarchist trial and one more boodler trial, we should without the aid of any posi tive statute arrive at the same goal through the rulings of the courts that New York has reached by legislative enactment.

In its improved condition in England and especially in its improved and varied condition in this country, under the benign influence of an expanded commerce, of enlightened justice, of republican principle, and of sound philosophy, the common law has become a code of matured ethics and enlarged civil wisdom, admirably adapted to promote and secure the freedom and happiness of social life. It has proved to be a system replete with vigorous and healthy principles, eminently conducive to the growth of civil liberty; and it is in no instance disgraced by such a slavish political maxim as that with which the Institutes of Justinian are introduced. It is the common jurisprudence of the United States, and was brought with

them as colonists from England and established here so far as it was adapted to our institutions and circumstances. It was claimed by the Congress of the united colonies in 1784, as a branch of those indubitable rights and liberties to which the respective colonies were entitled. It fills up every interstice and occupies every wide space which our statute law cannot occupy. Its principles may be compared to the influence of the liberal arts and sciences; and to use the words of De Ronceau "We live in the midst of the common law, we inhale it at every breath, inbibe it at every pore; we meet with it when we wake and when we lay down to sleep, when we travel and when we stay at home, and it is interwoven with the very idiom that we speak. We cannot learn another system of laws without learning at the same time another language.”

As the Supreme Court of the United States say in quite a recent decision, (17 Wallace, 664), "twelve men of the average community, of little education, men of learning and men whose learning consists only of what they have themselves seen and heard, the merchant, the mechanic, the farmer, the laborer, there sit together, consult, apply their separate experience of the affairs of life to the facts proven, and draw a unanimous conclusion.

"This average judgment, thus given, it is the great effort. of the law to obtain. It is assumed that twelve men know more of the common affairs of life than does one man; that they can draw wiser and safer conclusions from admitted facts thus occurring than a single judge." And in this we agree with them.

"This mode of trial" says Livingston, "diffuses the most. valuable information amongst every rank of our citizens. It is a school of which every jury that is impaneled is a separate class; where the dictates of the laws and the consequences of disobedience to them are practically taught. The frequent exercise of these important functions, moreover, gives a sense of dignity and self-respect, not only becoming the character of a free citizen, but which adds to his private happiness.

"Neither party spirit nor power can deprive him of his share in the administration of justice, though they can humble the